At the young age of 20, Milos Raonic has become Canada’s highest ranked tennis player, ever. Raonic is from Thornhill, Ont.
He jumped from 156 at the end of last year to number 37 with an incredible two-week run that included a win at San Jose and a closely played loss to the number-one seed Andy Roddick in Memphis last weekend.
He didn’t get to where he is by luck–he’s gotten here by hard work, says his mother. She told CBC Radio this morning that her son has practiced long and hard to get where he is. In fact, when he started out he wasn’t even good enough to play with the other kids his age. The coach said he had to improve if he wanted to join the other kids. So that’s what he did, playing before and after school and on weekends until he was good enough to be allowed to work with a coach.
Raonic, who stands 6-foot-5, has one of the hardest and fastest serves in tennis today. It has been clocked at more than 150 miles per hour. His opponents have to stand far back from the line in order to get ready to return it. Sometimes it looks like Raonic is serving to no one, his opponents have to move so far back.
Raonic’s rise to tennis stardom has been so fast that information about him isn’t even in the tour’s current media guide. They’d better hurry an add it to the guide, because the media will be asking for it from now on.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
Writing/Discussion Prompt
Milos Raonic is a person whose perseverance has really paid off. In other words, he has overcome many challenges and learned from his successes and failures. Why do you think some people succeed at achieving their goals while others fail? In your opinion, what characteristics belong to people who achieve great success?
Reading Prompt
Reading at an even speed is one of the most important things that you can do when you read! The reason is, reading too fast or too slowly makes comprehension very hard (comprehension means the ability to understand texts). Reread today’s article and really try to focus on your fluency (speed of reading).
Primary
Read appropriate texts at a sufficient rate and with sufficient expression to convey the sense of the text readily to the reader and an audience (OME, Reading: 3.3).
Junior
Read appropriate texts with expression and confidence, adjusting reading strategies and reading rate to match the form and purpose (OME, Reading: 3.3).
Grammar Feature: Expanded Sentences
Today’s article includes the sentence:
“Raonic, who stands 6-foot-5, has one of the hardest and fastest serves in tennis today.”
The author of today’s story could have simply written: “Raonic has a fast serve.”
Expanding sentences by adding details makes them clearer and a lot more interesting.
Expand the following sentences:
My birthday is soon.
I have a brother/sister.
I like music.
