Raonic sails past Almagro to reach Chennai Open final

The big-serving Canadian youngster Milos Raonic reached his third ATP Tour final after a 6-4, 6-4 thrashing of World Number 10 Nicolas Almagro in the Chennai Open semifinals on Saturday.

Ranked 31, Raonic took 72 minutes to dispatch his Spanish rival and earn a shot at his second ATP title, having won one in 2011 at San Jose.

He now awaits the winner of the other semifinal between Serbian top seed Janko Tipsarevic and Japanese qualifier Go Soeda for Sunday's final.

Raonic, who had played in three matches in Chennai Open this year had not dropped a set so far and is making his third career final of which he has won the title in San Jose.

The 6'5 Canadian fired 17 aces out of which the last three came when he served for the match.

Two of his three aces in the final game touched 212 Kmph, which was too hot to handle for Almagro.

"Nothing went wrong for me. Raonic is one of the best on the Tour, particularly on hard courts. He created many chances for himself to win the match, particularly his first serve successes," Almagro said after the match.

Raonic and Almagro were meeting for the first time in singles semi-final on the tour.

Raonic started the 2011 season here as a qualifier as world ranked 156 and made his exit losing to Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin.

However, he went on to upset many higher ranked players on the circuit tour to reach a career-high rank of 25 and later end the season at 31.

Raonic's game  plan was clear -- to use his most potent weapon, the fierce serve and he did that quite impressively.

He broke Amlagro in the seventh and ninth games of the two sets to clinch the issue.

Almagro did counter with an attacking game but Raonic was just unstoppable.

Almagro's deep returns in the second set were spot on as he was up for fight but it was Raonic's day out.

Almagro saved the first of the two breakpoints in the ninth game but could not save the second one and Raonic served out the match in the next game without any fuss.

Raonic said Sunday will be a big day for him as he has reached final of a tournament at the start of the season.

"It is important for me. It is a big difference to be finalist in the beginning of the season. It is not only important for me but it is important for my tennis and the recognition I get as a player in the final," he said.

"If I do things together and if I get right tomorrow, the title should come to me as I have the game to win," he said.

The Canadian said he will continue to play an attacking service game, which has brought results for him.

"The main things that I focus are the things I do have control on. I control my serves because I can take as much time as I want. So, this is very important for me. It is not important only on my service game but on the return game too and put some pressure on the opponent on his first serves as well, so that I can serve up the match from there," he said about his strategy.