Cilic all the rage to dump Muller
exactly what my hip issues are. I’ve been dealing with it for a very long time during my career.
“Obviously as you get older things are a bit tougher to manage than they are when you’re younger. There’s a bit more wear and tear there. And that’s it.” MARIN CILIC admitted he had to had to get himself pumped up and angry to get past Gilles Muller and book a semi-final slot against Sam Querrey.
The big Croatian had a battle to overcome Muller, the conqueror of Rafa Nadal, but he eventually came through 3-6, 7-6, 7-5, 5-7, 6-1 in a gruelling three-and-a-half-hour contest.
But Cilic revealed it was not until he started getting angry that he finally got his game going against the serve-and-volley specialist.
Cilic, who plays Querrey tomorrow, said: “I believe in continuing with aggressive tennis. It was important to be mentally fresh and believe in my abilities, even though I didn’t start so well. But I was focused, even after dropping that first set.”
Cilic, who had reached three successive quarter-finals at Wimbledon before finally breaking the barrier yesterday, started horribly but then regained control of the match, only to allow his opponent back in.
Muller denied that his four-hour-48 minute epic against Nadal on Monday had impacted on his performance, but he seemed to run out of steam in the final set.
He said: “What was very tough was the beginning of the fifth set. He played a phenomenal game to break me.”
The last time Cilic met Querrey in 2012 the match lasted five hours, 31 minutes and ended 17-15 in the final set – the second-longest match at Wimbledon.