Milos Raonic is looking to rediscover his big-serving game before his final round-robin match at the ATP World Tour Finals.
The 23-year-old Canadian dropped his first two matches, going down in straight sets to Roger Federer and Andy Murray. He must now defeat Kei Nishikori in straight sets to have a chance of reaching the semifinals.
"I've been too passive on the court. I've been trying to beat the two guys playing their tennis, and that's not going to work for me," he said. "But I'm just going to have to be aggressive. I'm going to have to make Kei play on my terms. It's something I haven't been able to do so far these last two matches."
The problems are due mostly to his subpar serving, he added. Raonic got in 53 percent of his first serves against Murray, but revealed even that wasn't the full story.
"To be frank, my first-serve percentage at this moment, at least today, shouldn't have been above 40 percent. I started hitting serves 115 m.p.h. to get it past 50 percent," he said. "Whatever the reason is, I have 24 hours to solve it, and I'm going to need to."
Raonic's serving problems have also had an effect on his overall level of play. "The serve sort of affects everything else," he said. "Serving, holding more comfortably. I lost my serve six times in three sets out of four sets I've played. It creates a higher pressure on my opponents when I serve well, and also takes some off my back and allows me to swing more freely on return games."
Raonic plans to concentrate on getting his mechanics right before his match with Nishikori. "Just go back to basics, focus on rhythm, focus on maybe the balance of my body, the toss, make sure the basics are in place, just go through repetition doing the right thing."
This is the first time Raonic has qualified for the Tour Finals.