Raonic withdraws from finals, Sock Delray champion- essentiallysports.com

Published 02/27/2017, 10:54 AM EST

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After defeating Juan Martin Del Potro, in straight sets Milos Raonic, withdrew from the finals of the Delray beach open, giving Jack Sock a walkover and be crowned as the champion. Milos Raonic played a wonderful match against the tall Argentine but later had to pull out of the finals, moments before the warm-ups started, due to a tear in his hamstring. Jack Sock said Milos Raonic informed him personally about the withdrawal and said he was pleasantly surprised, as he was just getting ready to warm up.

The unfortunate ending to the tournament raises further questions about the walk over rules, which some argue, need to be changed. If a player happens to be injured before the match, an ideal scenario would be, to give the player whom he defeated in the previous round an opportunity to fill in his shoes. That would have of course meant that Del Potro would have faced Sock in the finals, which would have been mouth watering and a fitting finale.

via Imago

But as it turns out Jack Sock is now the reigning champion of the Delray Beach open. He is in tremendous form, bagging his second title of 2017, and improving his record to 11-1 this year. He is also expected to move up to world number 18 which will be the highest he has been in his entire career so far. En-route to the finals he hadn’t dropped a single set and feels he thoroughly deserved the title, although it would have been much more pleasant if he had won it rather than receiving a walkover. Sock says his next goal is to break in through to the top ten and improve his level of tennis in the majors.

As for the Canadian, he says he felt a sharp pain in the match against Del Potro while chasing down a drop shot, and hoped that it would improve over night, but it was not to be. He says the pain got sharper come the next morning and he couldn’t even walk. Raonic has also been one of those players whose 2017 has been marred by injuries, to be precise, it has been the third successive tournament where he had to deal with an injury after the Brisbane open and Australian open. Raonic hopes he can get back on the tour as quickly as possible, and as far is Jack Sock is concerned, he will next be playing in Acapulco, where a star-studded line up awaits him.

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