Milos Raonic says if he liked being called a ‘serve bot’ as he makes Nick Kyrgios comment

Milos Raonic claims ‘serve bots’ should be doing better in today’s game

Raonic and his huge serve enabled him to win eight career titles and reach a Grand Slam final at Wimbledon.

While some players do not enjoy being reduced to just one shot, Raonic revealed that he actually takes the title ‘serve bot’ as a compliment.

The Canadian went on to discuss some of the biggest servers on the ATP Tour right now, including Nick Kyrgios, Reilly Opelka and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard.

While he believes Kyrgios’ serve is one of the best when at its peak, Raonic claimed that it can sometimes fluctuate.

“I think being a serve bot is complimentary,” Raonic said on The Changeover Podcast. “I know a lot of people take it personally and aren’t that happy about it, just trying to prove that they’re not a serve bot. I mean a serve bot in today’s game, because there’s not many, there’s less, could do much better, because guys just aren’t used to playing it right?

“So, it’s like nowadays if you are a serve bot I think there’s actually even more benefit of it, because it’s just more of a rare thing, because a lot more guys are playing a uniform kind of game style…Baseline, everybody’s solid, I’m trying to think there’s like Mpetshi Perricard, but they’re not doing it every week. They’re having like runs where it’s like this guy’s unbreakable this week, but they’re not only being broken by the top four to five guys consistently, where okay they lose but like I remember I would always watch like stats.

“If you’re playing the guy with the big serve, there was always two things I’d watch, you watch like their results before. If they’re losing 7-6 every time, you’re like geez I don’t want to play this guy it’s going to come down to a few points, but if you see a big server losing like three and four, or sometimes even like two breaks in a set you’re just like I’ll have my chances.

“And then the other thing I would always look at is even if a guy’s losing six and six, you go in on the most basic stats on the ATP Tour app and you see like zero break points faced, that’s very different from winning 7-6 7-6 but facing eight chances.

“If you see a guy like four matches into a tournament and you’re like geez, he’s faced three break points, hasn’t faced one in the last two matches. They’re short, there’s going to be no rhythm, you’re probably not going to have chances, it’s going to come down to a tie-breaker, if you’re facing that few break points throughout then they’re probably not going to give up many mini breaks either, it just all kind of adds on to the stress a little.

“All of a sudden you are thinking the break point at 2-2 in the first set is kind of a set point. That one thing is of the serve bots right now at this moment, I think Reilly can be there, Perricard I haven’t followed enough to know, but Reilly’s done that before he’s just not doing it as consistently now.

“But, I think that’s the one thing that’s missing where it’s just like Nick’s done that a bunch with Novak [Djokovic]…I think Nick has a great serve, but it’s just like compared to the other great servers his serve just fluctuated. He had those moments, and I don’t think it was a question of his serve, but you could maybe put it onto his discipline about it where he might just go away for a game. Where he just got pushed to the limit he could really even better than me do it to Novak. His ceiling was high, but his baseline was lower, so he fluctuated a lot more.

“People are like it’s such an insult to call me a serve bot, I made a career off of it being a serve bot I will take it any day. No other shot you could make a career out of. It doesn’t matter how good your forehand is, nobody is going ‘That guy’s a forehand bot, can’t put a backhand in’.”

Where does Milos Raonic’s serve rank in the history of tennis?

It should be of no surprise that Raonic takes being called a ‘serve bot’ as a compliment, particularly when you take a look at his statistics and career achievements.

Based on statistics from the ATPTour.com, Raonic is ranked as the third best server of all time in terms of the serve rating, only sitting behind the aforementioned Isner and Ivo Karlovic.

The serve rating adds the first serve percentage, the first serve win percentage, the second serve win percentage, the service games win percentage and the average aces per match, before taking away the average number of double faults per match.

This has particularly highlighted how strong Raonic was in terms of holding serve, which he did over 90% of the time.

Raonic was also able to produce over 15 aces per match on average, and he also holds the record for the highest number of aces in a best-of-three set match after hitting 47 past Cameron Norrie at the 2024 Queen’s Club Championships.