Čilić’s stellar run at Wimbledon comes to an end

The 36 year-old Croatian tennis ace has been struggling to regain his form of previous years, and this run at the All England Club will likely serve to boost his confidence for the remainder of the tennis season.

In a somewhat surprising return to form, veteran Marin Čilić made a strong run into the second week of the tournament. Ultimately he came up short of the quarter-finals, after losing to a closely fought match to Italian Flavio Cobolli, 6:4, 6:4, 6:7, 7:6, on Monday. Cobolli is the tournament's 22nd seed and is currently 24th on the ATP rankings.

Speaking ahead of the match on Sunday Čilić made it clear that he was well aware of the Italian's strengths: “Cobolli is a fantastic player. He's truly playing well over these past ten to twelve months. He's had some fantastic wins … he won Hamburg. So, there's not much more that needs to be said about him.”

The hard fought loss to Cobolli, however, does not paint the entire picture with regard to Čilić’s sudden return to form. Čilić opened the tournament with a 6:3, 6:4, 6:3, win over Belgian Raphael Collignon on Tuesday. But it was in the second round that he showed that he still has plenty of good tennis in his legs, after disposing of the tournament's 4th seed and world number four, Britain's Jack Draper, 6:4, 6:3, 1:6, 6:4. This marked his first win over a top five ranked player in more than three years.

“Yes absolutely, a great result after quite some time playing in Wimbledon obviously, since '21, and also playing a player like Jack, who is in great form, a great player, the home favorite. And for me I didn't have many grand slam victories of the last couple of years, so it was great to play at a great level from my side. A big part of the match went into a huge focus to stay in there, to play obviously this high level. I think I executed extremely well. So, I'm just enjoying this part that I'm playing well, now these last few weeks, and looking forward to continuing to play well,” Čilić said after the match.

And Čilić was true to his word, continuing his good play with a convincing third round win over Spain's Yaume Munar, 6:3, 3:6, 6:2, 6:4.

It will be interesting to see how he performs in the final grand slam of the season, the US Open, having won the major in 2014.

Source: HRT