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MIAMI OPEN PRESENTED BY ITAú


March 26, 2017


Milos Raonic


Miami, Florida

THE MODERATOR: Unfortunately Milos has to pull out of his match today with an injury. He'll explain it, and then we'll take questions.

MILOS RAONIC: Yeah, so it's related to the previous injury I sustained almost four weeks ago, if not a little bit more than four weeks ago, in Delray. It's the same muscle in the hamstring up high.

It got progressively worse after my first round, after practicing yesterday, and it seemed like it was not possible for me to compete today without putting myself at significant risk.

THE MODERATOR: Any questions?

Q. You said in Delray that you felt like you rushed back maybe a little. Do you think the same thing happened again, maybe rushing back?
MILOS RAONIC: No, I don't think so. I think I felt good through training. I wasn't necessarily playing my best or in the best shape I could be in obviously due to the fact that I wasn't able to train like I normally would.

But I felt like I came here and didn't have any issues through training and I only started really to feel issues in a match that I didn't feel was of such high intensity in my first round.

I think it's just something, probably my body giving me a warning sign and so forth, that maybe I'm not at this stage. I think I would've made the exact same decisions with the information I had.

Q. Is it the same hamstring, different tear or different location or same location.
MILOS RAONIC: No, no, same spot. So it's related to what I had previously. It's not any kind of lesion of a new form of anything.

It's all related to what I dealt with over the past few weeks.

Q. Do you feel at times you just can't take a trick as far as getting back, injury, get back...
MILOS RAONIC: It hasn't been fun the last seven months. I haven't played one tournament form start to finish healthy. My goal for this tournament was to at least finish it healthy.

I guess this is the closest at this point that I could. Obviously I think if it would be one match or a bit more time on court could have been a very different situation.

Q. You've got clay court season coming up, which is obviously something in terms of legs and your leg. Puts a whole different pressure on it. Do you have any kind of a time frame or anticipation of what you can do? If you're not a 100%, there is no point, right?
MILOS RAONIC: Well, right now the perspective is going to change a little bit. Obviously the goal through these tournaments being on hard courts and so forth was that I can come back as soon as I feel ready.

I think that that perspective is going to change to come back when I feel like I'm 100%. So I think that will -- so that could be -- who knows how long. That could be in two weeks; that could be a little bit longer.

I think the ideology behind when I'm back playing matches and competing, it will be in the sense that that's the best shape my body could be in.

Q. How concerned are you getting about the injury or any injury? Certainly when you start looking ahead to the grass court season, which will come around in next to no time I guess, and you've got a lot of defend over there, a lot to replicate. Do those things cross your mind at all?
MILOS RAONIC: I think they would've a while ago. Not so much recently. I think I've proven to myself that when I'm healthy I know how to win matches.

I don't necessarily need a lot of matches on court before that and so forth. For me it's about getting my own issues out of my way and then trying to make the tennis rather than the health the foremost of any attention.

In those kind of situations I've been perform and I've been able to perform well. My biggest worry, and it has been like this for a long time, it hasn't been tennis; it's all been health.

Q. Have you thought about changing anything of your preparation to maybe avoid this type of injury?
MILOS RAONIC: Yeah. We've been trying a lot of different things. We have been trying different things of how many days in a row I'll train to the kind of exercises I'll do and so forth.

I've been able to get through practices and training sessions where you push and push I would say physically-wise harder than matches. But I think in matches you sort of take out any kind of caution and you just go out and compete.

That's where the issues have been coming. Haven't been having issues of getting hurt in practices and so forth. It's about really finding maybe new methods and approaches just to keep myself or get myself as prepared to withstand any kind of strain on my body.

Q. First thing, do you remember the last tournament you played where you felt 100% physically good from start to finish?
MILOS RAONIC: Wimbledon.

Q. Last year?
MILOS RAONIC: Yeah.

Q. And I saw you entered Istanbul, so you seem to have quite an ambitious clay court schedule planned. Do you feel like that's in danger at this point?
MILOS RAONIC: I honestly don't know what's up for me next as far as tournaments go. Like I said, it's going to be when my body let's me know I'm 100%.

I'm not going to be come back like I did here or other tournaments just because I felt like I'll get healthier throughout the tournament or the tournaments are a little bit lighter considering the days off here.

The next goal is just going to be to come back at a 100%. Whenever that may be, I think my body is going to let me know when that moment is right.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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