MELBOURNE, Australia — Milos Raonic’s compatriots at Melbourne Park chanted his name and waved Canadian flags and handmade signs decorated with the country’s symbol, the maple leaf. If Raonic won his third-round match against Viktor Troicki, he decided, he would return the nationalistic show of support.
The Australian Open is tennis’s largest snow globe, with foreign participants insulated from the world they left behind by several time zones in addition to the usual force field of focus that envelops players during the two weeks of a major tournament. But on Saturday morning in a cafe on the tournament grounds, a breaking news story penetrated Raonic’s bubble.