When Milos Raonic and Stefanos Tsitsipas last met at the Australian Open it was the Canadian who fared better. Tsitsipas struggled immensely in regards to reading his opponents serve and generally returning it. When the Canadian is healthy and focused his serve becomes a deadly weapon with which many great players struggle. Ahead of their semifinal clash Tsitsipas admitted as much saying:

"I had a lot of trouble returning Raonic's serve at the Australian Open. “[The win] was very well deserved from his side because he played unbelievable that day. I was very upset I wasn't able to find solutions that day. His serve was really a weapon, causing a lot of damage."

It will be interesting to see whether Tsitsipas will have solutions today as Raonic enters this match in great shape arguably the best he has been in a long time. What might prove key for the Greek is the added amount of practice this week which saw him defeat serving powerhouses such as Kevin Anderson, Reilly Opelka, and John Isner en route to the semifinal.

For Raonic on the other hand it has been a fairytale week so far which is a testament to his preparation which was a serious and dedicated one. Earlier in the week, he admitted that he treated the suspension as an offseason combining practice with days off which proved a successful combination so far. Of his preparation he said:

"I started treating it like we did pre-season for six weeks of training, and I did three blocks of that. I did one right after we got shut down on March 11 or 12, took 10 days off, started around the 24th. I did six weeks, took two weeks off, another six weeks, took two weeks off, and another six weeks leading up to here."

The match starts at 19:00 CET or 1 pm local time(New York).

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