His secret weapon is his powerful serve. In the Australian open, his serve has been clocked at 230 kilometres an hour. And he once served the ball more than 250 kilometres an hour at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, which prompted tennis star Martina Navratilova to joke that his serve should be made illegal.
Because they knew he was going to be tall when he grew up, his coaches spent a lot of time working on his serve when he was very young. When a tennis player is tall, he has an easier time getting the ball over the net on his serve so he can work on making it very fast and hard. Raonic is now 6′ 6″ tall.
Raonic moved to Canada from Montenegro, in south-eastern Europe, when he was three years old. He said that although Canada is a hockey country, he wanted to play tennis because it allowed him to train by himself, with a ball machine. He was eight years old when he started training to be a tennis player at a club in Richmond Hill, Ont. He often played at 6:30 a.m. or 9 p.m. because the tennis court fees where cheaper at those times.
If he wasn’t a tennis player, Raonic says he would like to have a career in finance. Even as he travels the world playing tennis, he is studying and taking University Business courses.
As Raonic continues to move up the tennis ladder, more Canadians are paying attention to this young and exciting up-and-comer.
Update: Raonic was knocked out in the fourth round of the Australian Open, but that doesn’t take anything away from his accomplishments. He was the tournament’s most powerful server and came away from the Open with a cheque for $93,000. Here’s a good article on Raonic from today’s Globe and Mail.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
Writing/Discussion Prompt
Milos Raonic said that although Canada is a hockey country, he wanted to play tennis. Do you ever feel pressure to play games or sports that you would rather not play? What do you do/say when you feel like you are being pressured?
Reading Prompt
Readers picture in their mind (visualize) what they read in order to gain understanding. For example, it’s likely that as you read about how Raonic uses his height to get the most power into his serve, you imagined a tall man forcefully hitting a ball (for those of you who watch tennis, or play tennis, the picture in your mind would have likely been quite detailed). What other things did you visualize as you read today’s article?
Primary
Explain, initially with some support and direction, how their skills in listening, speaking, writing, viewing, and representing help them make sense of what they read (OME, Reading: 4.2).
Junior
Explain, in conversations with peers and/or the teacher or in a reader’s notebook, how their skills in… viewing and representing help them make sense of what they read (OME, Reading: 4.2).
Grammar Feature: Abbreviation
In Today’s article, the author writes that Milos Raonic is from Thornhill, Ont. Ont. is an abbreviation for the province of Ontario. Writers use abbreviations to keep their writing short and to the point. An abbreviation is always followed by a period even though it is not at the end of the sentence. Think of six abbreviations you know and write them down. Show them to a friend and see if they can tell what they stand for.
