Wily Cilic wins baseline battle of underdogs
Federer awaits after Querrey marathon First Croat to reach final since Goran Ivanisevic
This was the match for which tiebreaks were invented. But for the stalemate-busting shoot-out, you suspect this semi-final would have still been going on when the US Open began in September, played out to the thrum of unreturnable boom-bang-a-bang serves still thwacking the Centre Court canvas backboards.
Judging by the acreage of empty seats when Sam Querrey and Marin Cilic walked out to begin hammering down their weaponry, many among the Centre Court crowd were lamenting the semi-final that might have been. If form had been followed – and fitness allowed – this should have been Andy Murray against Rafa Nadal, a feast for the eyes of craft and guile. Instead it was a heave-ho thwackathon between two baseline sluggers.
Not that anyone could begrudge the pair their moment. How they had earned it. This was Querrey’s 10th Wimbledon, Cilic’s 11th. Neither had ever got nearer the closing stages than the quarter-final. And here they were within grasping distance of taking the first waltz at the winners’ ball. This was the underdogs’ chance to rewrite history.
The last time the pair had met here, it took five and a half hours for Cilic to emerge as the winner, after the second-longest match on record at Wimbledon. And their reacquaintance began as if nothing had changed from that 2012 marathon. As each player hammered down unplayable serves, the first set lumbered towards the tiebreak. It was Cilic who blinked first and Querrey took it with, appropriately enough, a firecracker of an ace.
Even as he fired his winners, however, the American looked as you would imagine Richard Osman might if given a racket and sent out on court. Tall and ungainly, he appears as athletic as an Ikea wardrobe. A man permanently dishevelled; his shorts don’t hang well, his socks are grey, his cap dog-eared.
But my, can he strike a tennis ball. One serve of his drew an “ooh” of astonishment as it was recorded at 135mph. And if he can whack it, so can Cilic. The trouble was they rarely did it in succession: we were obliged to wait until the fourth game of the second set for a rally worthy of the name. And for the seventh game of the second set for the first break of serve, when, after one hour and seven minutes of heavy metal tennis, Cilic’s sizzling backhand winner finally disrupted the mechanical accumulation of service games.
It was a telling moment. The wilier Croat was gradually becoming more effective at gaining points on the return. And he won the second set with an apologetic plop of a smash after Querrey found himself marooned on the wrong side of the court.
By now, Querrey’s disappointed smile when things didn’t go his way was becoming more evident. But he is a man of considerable reserves of determination. And the crowd warmed to his tenacity. Not to mention his skill. One gently guided lob at the net span through 180 degrees as it hit the turf, the kind of delivery Shane Warne would dream of. He earned another tiebreak at the end of the third set. Once again, however, Cilic was in the ascendant, his placement at times superb.
He carried his supremacy into the fourth set, breaking Querrey again and striding towards what will be his second grand slam final (after the US Open in 2014), with a sumptuous forehand winner. As the ball found its target, Cilic roared in delight.
The 7-6, 4-6, 6-7, 5-7 win meant he is only the second Croat after Goran Ivanisevic, who won in 2001, to make the Wimbledon men’s singles final. Now he has the chance to make some memories of his own. History awaits, albeit in the daunting shape of Roger Federer.