Canadian veteran Milos Raonic advanced to the quarter-finals of the ABN Amro Open tennis tournament with a 6-4, 6-4 upset of eighth seed Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
The 33-year-old Raonic, a former world No. 3 from Thornhill, Ont., scored a key break to go up 3-2 in the second set and kept Bublik at bay the rest of the way with his powerful serve.
Five of Raonic’s 12 aces came after that break, including three straight to go up 5-3 and another to set up match point in the final game.
Raonic’s quarter-final opponent is yet to be determined, but a possibility could be Gael Monfils.
The French veteran moved on to the second round with a tough 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5) win over Canadian qualifier Denis Shapovalov.
Shapovalov, from Richmond Hill, Ont., missed on a break point chance in Game 7 of the second set.
With the second tiebreaker tied 5-5, Monfils won the next point on return before converting match point on serve.
Monfils will face the winner of a match between top seed Jannik Sinner of Italy and Botic van de Zandschulp of the Netherlands in the second round. The winner of that match will face Raonic in the quarter-finals.
Later Wednesday, Canada’s Félix Auger-Aliassime dropped his second-round match at the ABN Amro Open tennis tournament against Russia’s Andrey Rublev losing 6-3, 6-7 (6), 5-7 on Wednesday.
The Montreal native had 20 aces and 42 winners in the match of 2 hours 33 minutes.
However, he had 22 unforced errors to just 12 from Rublev, along with five double faults to his opponent’s two.
The 23-year-old Auger-Aliassime won the tournament back in 2022, one of the four he was victorious in that year.