Breaking the glass ceiling, Marin Cilic emerges US Open champion in grand style

Marin Cilic with the US Open men’s singles championship trophy

Following 10 days of bright sunny weather along expected lines and in keeping with the regular forecasts, there was a sea change in the pattern the last four days at the 2014 US Open. Accompanying this change in the weather was a change of pattern, quite different from the forecasted predictions, in how the men’s singles championship panned out at the final Grand Slam of the year.

Standing tall (literally and figuratively) at the end of it all was 25-year-old Marin Cilic of Croatia, the 14th seed, with the championship trophy in his hands having just put down the challenge of his final opponent, Kei Nishikori. The 10th seed from Japan was Cilic’s final victim in a run to the championship that uprooted many a seed, leaving them displaced in the wake of his seismic display. In the process, he became the lowest seed to win the men’s singles championship since the great Pete Sampras did it as the 17th seed back in 2002.

Journey from Court 11 to Arthur Ashe Stadium

Cilic did his rounds on Court 11, Grandstand and the Louis Armstrong Stadium inside the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center as he made his way into the quarter-finals for a meeting with Tomas Berdych. With that the scene shifted to the centrepiece Arthur Ashe Stadium; with the change in scene, came a huge upswing in Cilic’s form, going from good to near stratospheric levels.

And it was success achieved not by virtue of the rest of the pack giving way, but by Cilic clearing the path for himself, tossing aside everything that stood in front of him. Consistently big-hitting from both wings, a booming serve and great court positioning were the instruments that he used to such telling effect that his opponents simply had no answer to him in the latter stages of the tournament. To say that he played unbelievable tennis fails to somewhat capture what tennis watchers around the world were treated to; he simply played ‘lights-out’ to use a sporting phrase.

Roger Federer had no answer to Cilic’s brilliance in the semi-finals

2001 Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic has been the new face in the Cilic camp since the end of last season. What was also new in his title run was his calm and confident approach with an unwavering focus and nerve. Taking out players of the ilk of Berdych, Roger Federer and Nishikori with such consummate ease isn’t everyday business.

It is not uncommon to see players hit such patches of form in events on tour – Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s Rogers Cup win comes to mind – and even Davis Cup matches, but rarely is it seen so consistently in Grand Slams outside of the ‘Big 3’. But a man named Stanislas Wawrinka turned that theory on its head at the beginning of the year to earn himself a maiden Grand Slam title at the Australian Open and Cilic, taking cue from the Swiss man, capped off a similar run at the year’s final major.

Grand Slam champion state of mind

It’s a second coming for Cilic who made it to the final four of a Slam for the first time four years ago at the Australian Open. Then too he was the 14th seed, but ended up losing in four sets to Andy Murray. That semi-final run came close on the heels of his triumph at the Chennai Open where he had beaten Wawrinka in straight sets. Since then, it’s been a bit of a rough and tumble ride for the Croat for he seemed to get stuck in that ridge between the top 10 and 20 due to inconsistent form.

Having worked with Ivanisevic’s coach early in his career, he decided to plump for the man himself to help him find a new gear to his game. The results so far have definitely proven the positives of the partnership. The title at Flushing Meadows may have added a nice exclamation point to it all, but his 2014 season even before it had been one of massive improvement.

Cilic has been working with Goran Ivanisevic since the end of last year

He was 40-16 coming into the US Open with two titles under his belt. We got a glimpse of what he could do in his two battles with Novak Djokovic at the French Open and Wimbledon. He managed to take a set off the Serb in Paris, while in London he led two-sets-to-one after having lost the first set, the pressure firmly on Djokovic. That match will best be remembered for the glut of break points that Djokovic couldn’t capitalize on simply because Cilic was coming up with his best tennis on those points. He put in a similar performance against Federer in the fourth round at Cincinnati, where he saved 9 match points to push the match into a decider.

That new-found big game toughness and the elegantly destructive elements of his game came together beautifully this past fortnight to power his way through to a memorable triumph.

Turning the tables on his adversaries

Of note in particular was how he fared from the fourth round onwards. After having made reasonably light work of opponents with a losing record against him (Marcos Baghdatis, Ilyara Marchenko, Kevin Anderson) Cilic in each of the remaining rounds had to overcome players against whom he boasted a career losing record, two of whom he had never beaten in his life.

Before his encounters at New York, he was 0-4 against Gilles Simon, 3-5 against Berdych, 0-5 against Federer and 2-5 against Nishikori. Against Simon, he’d been two-sets-to-one up in the second round of the year’s first Slam, but faded badly in the final two. He was in a similar position in his fourth round encounter with the Frenchman here, but he battled through. That battle against Simon seemed to flip a switch inside of him for what he went on to produce that stage onwards was simply mind-blowing.

Like with Federer, Cilic hadn’t won a match against Gilles Simon before the tournament

As alluded to by Cilic himself, his work with Ivanisevic has got him enjoying playing the game of tennis again while also helping him deal with the big-match stage a little better with the voice of a Grand Slam winner in his box. That apart, the serve is now vastly improved and it has got to do with a change in his service motion where he has shortened the ball toss and quickened the final racquet swing motion. The final motion is very Goran-like these days. It served as the great neutralizer every time any of his opponents even had a sniff of an opportunity at making a comeback.

Also, as mentioned earlier, Cilic was handed a 9-month suspension for testing positive for a banned substance last year. That was subsequently reduced to four months following a hearing wherein they listened to his plea of how it got into his system. Still, something like that is bound to have an effect on a person with people around suddenly bound to be looking at you through a cloud of suspicion. Some would allow it to destroy them, but in Cilic’s case it seems to have stirred him up enough to embark on a journey to prove his doubters wrong.

Can Cilic come good consistently here on in?

It is a question that is always asked of newly minted champions. Can they sustain it in the long run or are they destined to be just one-Slam wonders?

Historically, the last six men to have won their first Slam at the US Open have not gone beyond two majors – Andy Murray (2), Juan Martin del Potro (1), Andy Roddick (1), Lleyton Hewitt (2), Marat Safin (2), Pat Rafter (2). You have to go back to Sampras again for the last man to win a litany of titles having won a Slam first in New York.

However, the nature of Cilic’s win and the quality of opposition that he took out en route to his success suggests a long run in the top rung of men’s tennis is not beyond the Croat. For quite simply, against the tennis he played towards the latter half of his US Open campaign, nobody would have stood a chance.

It is possibly unlikely that he will play at that near-impossible level for sustained periods the rest of his career, but his triumph went a long way in answering if he’s got the game and the mentality to mix it up with the best in the fray. Also, his coming of age and the added maturity at 25 should hopefully keep him safe from mental irregularities that new champions tend to suffer from. Whether he can hold it all together and keep up that drive is what we need to look out for.

He may have orchestrated the perfect sonata in New York, but it would be egregious of us to anoint him the next big thing just yet and expect symphonies of him every other time he steps onto the court from now on. But, what we can do is savour the sumptuous tennis that he served up at Flushing Meadows that got us humming to his tunes like the sonic boom that accompanied each of his wins. He’s given us a new channel of music that we can tune into on the ATP tour.