Top seed Marin Cilic barely put a foot wrong on Thursday to advance to the Tata Open Maharashtra semi-finals with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over eighth-seeded Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert in 64 minutes. The Croatian lost just one of his first service points (23/24) and struck seven aces as he continued his bid to win a third title on Indian soil, following victories in 2009 and 2010, when the ATP World Tour 250 tournament was held in Chennai. Cilic will next challenge France’s Gilles Simon, who was a 6-2, 6-3 winner over Spanish qualifier Ricardo Ojeda Lara. [ALSO LIKE] In other action, second-seeded South African Kevin Anderson was dominant on serve, hitting 24 aces and saving five of six break points,...
World No. 6 Marin Cilic got his 2018 ATP World Tour season off to a smooth start with a 6-4, 6-3 win over wild card Ramkumar Ramanathan on an action-packed day at the Tata Open Maharashtra. The two-time winner looked in control for the majority of the first set, recovering from a serving hiccup at 5-3 with an immediate break back to clinch the first set 6-4. Cilic went from strength to strength in the second set, dropping just seven points across five service games on his way to sealing a quarter-final spot after 72 minutes. However, the same could not be said for Roberto Bautista Agut as the World No. 20 fell in his season opener to French veteran...
The Tata Maharashtra Open is set to get underway this week with Marin Cilic heading a field of 28 players vying to start their 2018 ATP World Tour seasons off with a bang. Leading the charge for the first time in the West Indian metropolis of Pune, is World No. 6 and 2014 US Open champion Cilic. With nothing to defend in the opening week of 2018, Cilic will look to add on precious ranking points to nudge himself closer to the career-high of No. 4 in the Emirates ATP Rankings that he achieved late last season courtesy of his run to the Wimbledon final. The 29-year-old Croat is a two-time champion at Tata Maharashtra Open in both 2009 and...
Marin Cilic did not have the Nitto ATP Finals he was hoping for this week. The fifth seed fell in all three of his Group Boris Becker matches, despite pushing them to three sets and leading by a break in the third set against Alexander Zverev and Jack Sock. But when the Croatian fully looks back at his 2017 season, he will have much to be proud of this year. For the second consecutive year, Cilic will finish in the Top 10 of the Emirates ATP Rankings, and for the 10th consecutive year, the 6'6” right-hander celebrated an ATP World Tour title. In May, Cilic won the TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open (d. Raonic). It was his first clay-court title...
Typically a picture of calm, regardless of the score, Roger Federer still grapples with much of the same internal dialogues as his peers at crunch times on court. The 36-year-old conceals it better than most, but during a three-set triumph over Alexander Zverev at the Nitto ATP Finals on Tuesday, he admits he let it bubble to the surface at times. Having already qualified for his 14th semi-final in 15 appearances at the season finale, there is less chance of much frustration showing in his final round-robin clash against No. 7 seed Marin Cilic on Thursday. Even a man playing as freely and confidently as Federer in 2017, though, needs to give himself a pep talk in the heat of...
