(Reuters) – Canadian Milos Raonic pummelled 47 aces, a record for a best-of-three sets ATP match, as he toppled Briton Cameron Norrie 6-7(6) 6-3 7-6(9) to reach the second round of the Queen’s Club Championships on Monday.
The 2016 Wimbledon finalist beat the previous mark set by Ivo Karlovic in 2015 in Halle by two aces and will next play the winner of a match between American Taylor Fritz and Taro Daniel of Japan at the grasscourt tournament.
Raonic, who missed the 2022 season with injury and played only a handful of events last year, saved match point twice in the third-set tiebreak and said he needed everything in his arsenal against the 39th-ranked Norrie.
“I probably needed every single one of those,” he was quoted as saying by the ATP.
“This small record, it’s something special, something meaningful. I’m glad that behind that also stands a win because maybe I’d feel differently or maybe a bit more sour if I was to get that many free points and lose the match.”
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
