Milos Raonic is making his first Grand Slam final appearance. (Getty)
Milos Raonic isn’t exactly a household name to the casual tennis fan.
While he did reach No. 4 in the ATP rankings in May 2015, he had been overshadowed by the Big Four — Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal.
But on Sunday, Raonic will play in his first Grand Slam final at Wimbledon. To get this point, Raonic knocked off one of the Big Four in the semifinals — Federer. Now, he takes on another for the championship — the hometown hero, Murray.
Hailing from the United Kingdom, Murray will definitely have the crowd behind him. Raonic might not have the following in England, but there will be millions of fans cheering him on back in Canada, the 25-year-old’s home country. Currently ranked 7th in the world, Raonic is the first Canadian to reach a Grand Slam men’s final.
Raonic is actually of Serbian descent. He was born in Titograd, Yugoslavia, which is now Podgorica, Montenegro. When he was 3 in 1994, his family moved to Brampton, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto.
Raonic graduated from the Thornhill Secondary School in Southern Ontario a year before he was supposed to. At 16 he moved to Montreal to work with Tennis Canada, the national governing body of the sport.
He is definitely a Canadian — Raonic’s favorite sports teams are the Raptors, Maple Leafs and Blue Jays, all of Toronto.
According to his atpworldtour.com bio, Raonic currently resides in Monte Carlo, Monaco.