Cilic edges Kyrgios to set up Djokovic showdown
london — Top seed Marin Cilic ended Nick Kyrgios’s entertaining run at the Fever-Tree Queen’s Club championships with a 7-6(3) 7-6(4) victory on Saturday as he reached the final for the fourth time.
A high-level semi-final full of thundering serves boiled down to two tiebreaks in which the icecool Cilic proved the more composed player to set up a Sunday showdown with former world number one Novak Djokovic.
Unseeded Djokovic was given some trouble by Jeremy Chardy in the opening set but prevailed 7-6(5) 6-4 to take his record over the Frenchman to 11-0 and 26-0 in sets.
World number six Cilic was out-aced 16-11 but never gave Australian maverick Kyrgios a sniff of a service break.
“It’s special to play here and I’ve played great tennis throughout the week and it’s great to have another shot at the title,” the 2012 Queen’s champion said on a sunny centre court.
“Nick is serving so good and it was tough to get a look on the service returns. As expected a couple of points made the difference in the tiebreaks.”
Kyrgios, ranked 21, had served 82 aces on his way to the semifinal and was in scintillating form against defending champion Feliciano Lopez on Friday.
He could not quite reach that level again but was still happy with his grasscourt form having lost narrowly to Roger Federer in the Stuttgart semis last week and beaten former Wimbledon champion Andy Murray for the first time at Queen’s.
“The last couple of weeks, I feel pretty untouchable on serve. Today I just didn’t have any chances to break at all,” the 23-year-old told reporters. —