Marin Cilic turns back the clock as he reaches maiden Roland Garros semifinals

| by Kadir Macar

The 33-years-old Marin Cilic will play his first semifinal at the Roland Garros after he defeated Andrey Rublev in five sets.

Statistically, the Rolland Garros has been the worst Grand Slam for Marin Cilic over the years. He reached the semifinals at the Australian Open in 2010 and final in 2018. In Wimbledon's All England Club, he played the final in 2017 and the Croatian won the US Open in 2014. Yet, he never got past quarterfinals in the French capital, until today.

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Both players were coming into the quarterfinals in a great form as Andrey Rublev previously defeated Soonwoo Kwon, Federico Delbonis, Cristian Garin and Jannik Sinner losing one set to all of his opponents. On the other hand, Marin Cilic defeated Attila Balasz, Marton Fucsovics, Gilles Simon and Daniil Medvedev as he lost only one set in total during his journey. They met 6 times in the past with Rublev winning on 4 occasions.

The last time Cilic triumphed was at the Grand Slam in Australia this year, and he managed to replicate that result although it didn't look like that from the start. In the first set, it was only Rublev who had breakpoints as he needed 6 to get the crucial break and win the first set 7-5.

In the next two sets, the Croatian was almost unstoppable while his opponent made too many mistakes. In the second set, Cilic hit 21 winners and only 11 unforced errors alongside 9 aces what resulted in 6-3 victory. He continued also in the third as he hit 7 aces and 13 winners while his opponent hit only 1 winner and made 11 unforced errors, gifting him the 2-1 lead in the match.

But Rublev fought back in the fourth set as he made only three unforced errors and didn't allow his opponent to have a single breakpoint in the set to win it 6-3. The match reached the tie-break in the final set which was dominated by Cilic who won it 10-2 to reach his first Roland Garros semifinal.

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