Twice Jack Sock ranged to his left on a break point in the third set. Twice he got the shot he wanted to hit, an inside-out forehand. Twice he missed it. Twice his opponent, Milos Raonic, held serve.
If Sock had made one of those forehands, he would likely have gone on to record the most satisfying win of his career. As it was, the 21-year-old went down to an especially frustrating 4-6, 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4) defeat, his fourth to Raonic in 2014 alone. This time Sock had taken a set, he had broken Raonic’s virtually unbreakable serve, and he hadn’t been broken all night. But it still wasn’t enough, because he couldn’t make his favorite shot when he needed to make it. The way Raonic plays tiebreakers these days, you need to break his serve twice, a daunting task for anyone.
“When you play him,” Sock said later, “usually when you get down a break, it usually means the set’s over. That’s why he kind of is where he is, though, he kind of comes up big in those moments.”
It’s hard to know what to make of Sock at this moment. There's no doubt he has improved. His ranking is up to No. 60, he’s winning matches at Masters events, and he’s a Wimbledon (doubles) champion. I had never realized how fast his feet are until his last match with Raonic, in D.C. last week. Sock can get around and hit a forehand even if the ball is in the doubles alley on his backhand side. When he hits it right, it's one of the deadliest kill shots in the game.
But there’s also something risky about that it. He guns the ball with maximum arm speed every time, and in the clutch moment on Wednesday, in the third-set tiebreaker, it was his forehand that provided the crucial errors that gave Raonic the win. While it’s impressive that Sock can get around to hit a forehand from anywhere, it would be even better if he could crack a solid backhand from those positions instead.
