Marin Cilic advanced to his first clay-court ATP World Tour Masters 1000 semi-final on Friday in a polished performance at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia.
The fourth-seeded Croatian was solid on serve, good in defence and gave little away in a 6-3, 6-3 victory over No. 10 seed Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain over 66 minutes.
“I’m feeling great [after reaching] my first semi-final on clay at a Masters 1000 event,” said Cilic. That's a good achievement. I was waiting many years for it to happen, so it’s definitely a happy moment for sure.
“I served incredibly well, both on first and second serve. That was extremely important. It gave me a lot of freedom in my game. When I'm serving that well, everything else comes a little bit more naturally. On return, I gave myself a few chances and managed to break. I wouldn't say it was perfect, but it's difficult to have an extremely perfect match in the quarter-finals."
Cilic will next meet second-seeded German Alexander Zverev, last week’s Mutua Madrid Open champion, or ninth seed David Goffin of Belgium, who compete tonight at the Foro Italico in Rome.
The 29-year-old Cilic was immediately at his aggressive best, breaking Carreno Busta for a 4-2 lead and he later clinched the 31-minute opener when his Spanish opponent hit a forehand return into the net. Cilic lost just four first-service points (20/24) in the first set.
The pressure continued to build on Carreno Busta, who made a forehand error in the first game of the second set to lose his serve. At 3-5, Deuce, Carreno Busta struck a forehand long after he saw Cilic slip on his return of serve. Then, on Cilic's first match point, the Croatian fired his 19th winner — a forehand — of the pair’s third FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting (3-0).
“I think I [have] improved as a player over the years on clay," said Cilic. "Last year, I found a really good combination of training and also preparing for the matches, [so I] maybe slightly changed my game on clay.”
Cilic improves to 18-7 on the season, which includes a runner-up finish at the Australian Open (l. to Federer). Carreno Busta, a semi-finalist at the Miami Open presented by Itau (l. to A. Zverev), the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell (l. to Tsitsipas) and the Millennium Estoril Open (l. to Tiafoe), drops to an 18-11 mark.
Did You Know?
Marin Cilic captured his lone Masters 1000 crown at the 2016 Western & Southern Open and has also reached two other hard-court semi-finals at the 2016 Rolex Paris Masters and the 2017 Rolex Shanghai Masters.
