They say good things come in threes and that certainly applies to the recognition that Milos Raonic has received in the form of three awards:-
The Canadian Club of Toronto presents its Canadian of the Year Award to distinguished Canadians whose efforts and example have improved the lives of others and benefited us as a nation. On Wednesday, November 26th, the Canadian Club recognized Milos Raonic of Thornhill, Canada's top ranking professional tennis player, as the 2014 Canadian of the Year award recipient.
Then on Friday Dec 5th Tennis Canada announced the male recipients of the 2014 Tennis Canada Excellence Awards. It was no surprise when they named Milos Raonic as the Birks Male Player of the Year for the fourth time. Maybe more of a surprise was that they also named him as the 2014 Most Improved Player of the Year in recognition of his continued growth even at his exceptionally high level. By reaching his first Grand Slam semifinal, qualifying for the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals, and consolidating his ranking inside the Top 10, Milos has shown that he has elevated his game and that the best of his career may well be yet to come.
Next it was Milos who turned his success into awards for the next generation of tennis players. On Tuesday Dec 9th Tennis Canada announced the creation of a new Player Coaching Grant for under 12 players, which was made possible due to support from Milos. The grants will be used to offset players' coaching and travel costs.
Milos commented, "Costs associated with a promising player reaching their potential can be difficult for some families. My parents gave me every opportunity to succeed and I’m continuing to set and reach my goals, but that’s not the case for everyone. I want Canada to continue producing high-calibre talent and hopefully this grant helps remove some barriers that may be facing the young players and their families that need that training, development and competition.”
Three Ontario players will be the retroactive recipients of the award for 2013. They are Liam Draxl, Viktoriya Tabunshchyk and Alexandra Akhipov.
Ariana Arsenault and Sebastian Serbanescu of Ontario and Justus Alexandre Agbo and Melodie Collard of Quebec are the 2014 recipients of the grant.
