US Open 2014: Marin Cilic heralds his coming of age, one deafening serve at a time

Marin Cilic smiling next to the trophy after winning the 2014 US Open

The sound of it may have been the most memorable thing of all. Every time Marin Cilic hit one of his mammoth serves during the 2014 US Open, there was a loud ‘crack’ that resonated all around the cavernous Arthur Ashe stadium. It was a sound that indicated everything that’s good about the modern power game – an expression of the fury that can be unleashed with a single swing of the human arm, of the venom that can be created with something as simple as a tennis racquet.

Yes, the modern power game is loaded with risk; it doesn’t always look pretty, and certainly doesn’t always produce beautiful sounds. If anything, many pundits have bemoaned the idea of taking huge cuts at every single shot, for the simple reason that it is not humanly possible to achieve any measure of consistency with that approach. But Cilic, with ground-shaking performances from the quarterfinals onwards that culminated in a 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 dismantling of Kei Nishikori in the final, turned that theory upside down.

The impossibly absurd winning formula

In the era of dominance by the Big 4 (an era that may well be coming to an end), there has been no fixed blueprint for the underdogs to upstage the Big Dogs. Every formula seems to have a fault that is promptly pounced upon by a Rafael Nadal or a Novak Djokovic: sometimes an over-reliance on flat shots (think Tomas Berdych), or at others an inability to outrun the player on the opposite side of the net (think David Ferrer).

So Cilic developed his own, practically impossible-to-replicate formula: smack every ball as close to the lines as possible, and don’t miss.

Sounds impossible to implement? Tell that to the millions of people who are still dazed by the superhuman play that Cilic displayed against Berdych, Roger Federer and Nishikori in three consecutive matches. Perhaps the simplest explanation of Cilic’s jaw-dropping performance is this: the Croat entered the proverbial ‘zone’ around the start of the Berdych match, and didn’t leave it until he went up by a double break in the second set against Nishikori yesterday. That’s nearly eight sets of near-perfect tennis, on the biggest stage in the sport.

Did I just say eight sets of near-perfect tennis? How is something like that even possible?

I have no idea how, and I doubt even Cilic himself knows how he managed to do it. Performances like this come about just once in a generation; the match against Federer was certainly one for the ages. It reminded me of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s victory against Rafael Nadal at the 2008 Australian Open; both times, there was simply nothing that the opponent, a decorated multiple Slam winner in each case, could do against the onslaught of power coming from the other side of the net.

But Tsonga could redline his game for just one match, while Cilic’s ‘zone’ lasted for the better part of three. Perhaps it is only fair that Tsonga failed to win the tournament that time, but Cilic went on to lift the trophy here.

Doing everything right

It wasn’t just Cilic’s spectacular offense that marked his extraordinary run in New York. He was always expected to serve big and use his backhand as a weapon, but he somehow managed to do just about everything else well too. When stretched wide on the forehand, traditionally his weaker wing, he did a fantastic job of sending safe, angled, crosscourt shots that kept him in the point. He also frequently sliced the ball off his backhand, changing the rhythm of the rallies just enough to keep his opponents guessing.

Cilic scrambled all over the court brilliantly, in many cases using his large wingspan to out-defend much quicker opponents than him. And perhaps most importantly, he hit his inside-out forehand with plenty of spin (but still very close to the lines), and hardly made a mess of any mid-court balls, as he has been wont to do throughout his career. Despite trying his best to pound every short ball in his sights to smithereens, he made all of 50 errors in the semifinal and final combined.

Cilic served better than Berdych, returned sharper than Federer, defended smoother than Gilles Simon and attacked with his forehand more forcefully than Nishikori. When you nullify all of your opponents’ strengths like that, is there any place to hide?

The transformation that befuddled the world

But none of that explains how Cilic managed to bring about all these changes in his game. How did he turn into a rock of clutch serving and solid groundstrokes all of a sudden, when there was nothing in the past few years to suggest that he’d ever become that kind of player?

Sure, he’s always been talented – I remember thinking back in 2008, when Cilic and Juan Martin del Potro had both burst on to the scene at about the same time, that the Croat was the player with the greater upside. The easy power he could generate off either wing (especially off the backhand) and the tremendous foot-speed he possessed (for a guy as tall as him) looked certain to create headaches for every player on the tour.

The intervening years, however, did nothing to validate that theory; while del Potro established himself among the men’s elite, Cilic kept going from one mental breakdown to another. The last time he was in a Grand Slam semifinal before this – at the 2010 Australian Open – the Croat blew a huge lead against Andy Murray; he was a set and 5-2 up before his game completely unravelled, handing the match to Murray in four sets.

The Marin Cilic serve

The influence of Goran Ivanisevic, who was added to his coaching team this year, has been widely credited as the reason for Cilic’s turnaround. And yes, the Ivanisevic effect on his charge’s serve is as clear as day; Cilic’s serve has gone from merely good to certifiably great. His three-ace game to close out Federer in the semifinals will be talked about for years to come.

But Ivanisevic, bless his heart, was never anywhere close to how consistent Cilic has become off the ground, nor was he known for possessing a particularly stable head. Remember, Ivanisevic is the same guy who was frequently derided as a one-trick pony by all-court tennis connoisseurs, and who lost three Wimbledon finals before finally winning the tournament as a wildcard.

The long and dope of it

Debating the X’s and O’x of Cilic’s transformation will likely always be a futile exercise; no one but he himself knows exactly what turned on the light in his head all of a sudden, and whether Ivanisevic had as big a role to play in it as so many are claiming. But if we’re going to look for other possible reasons for this Cinderella story, we could do worse than assuming that his doping-related suspension last year had something to do with it.

As everyone probably knows by now, Cilic was banned for nine months by the ITF last year for testing positive for N-ethylnicotinamide, a banned stimulant. The sentence was subsequently reduced to four months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, after the panel accepted his explanation that he had ingested the substance unknowingly. (The full text of the CAS’s decision can be seen here).

Cilic claimed that the substance got into his system accidentally, through a glucose supplement given to him by his mother (this may be just me, but why do athletes so often involve their mothers in cases like this?).

The incident, naturally, left Cilic with more than a point to prove when he returned to the tennis courts last October. There’s no greater shame in the sporting world than being accused (and in this case, convicted) of cheating, and it’s not hard to imagine that the Croat was raring to go out there and inflict a resounding slap on the faces of all those who had tried to bring him down.

Working the fine margins

Except that you can’t just decide to suddenly become a world-beater, and then automatically become one. Tennis is about as competitive a sport as they come, and there’s no shortcut to success. You can’t learn to defeat the likes of Nadal and Djokovic overnight, and you certainly can’t do it if you aren’t willing to turn yourself into a glutton for punishment, slaving through impossible fitness regimes.

That’s where the raw talent of Cilic helped. He was always gifted; now, with four months of downtime, plenty of motivation to remain completely focussed, and serving advice from the greatest server in history, the Croat could make those minor changes in his game and on-court presence that were crying out to be made.

In modern day tennis, which is ruled by fine margins and intricate adjustments, even small changes can sometimes make a world of difference. Cilic’s game not is not all that unrecognizable from what it used to be earlier; he’s just serving with a little more pop, hitting his forehand with a little more control, and being a little wiser with his shot selection. And as this year’s US Open has shown, that was all that was needed to turn him into a world-beater.

The memory that will last an eternity

The Croat still has to back this up; for a player as talented as him, one Slam title is not nearly a big enough haul. And like everything else about life, there’s no way to predict whether he will add to his collection in the future, or if he will ever get to World No. 1 (which still seems a long way off, even after his stunning performance here).

Cilic might very well end his career as a chronic underachiever, which he has been threatening to do for about six years now. And he could very well continue to be looked at with suspicious eyes (credit Federer for refusing to do so, but not everyone will be as trusting) for the rest of his career. One tournament, as life-changing as it may seem, doesn’t change everything.

But Cilic doesn’t need to change everything; not now, at any rate. The memory of his perfect week in Flushing Meadows is something that no one will ever be able to take from him, and he can live his whole life on that alone. People can judge him all they want, but they know now that he has accomplished something that very few tennis players in history have. And perhaps, with time, the memory of those blazing serves and atomic groundstrokes, all hit with inch-perfect precision, will tide over the doubts and the unsavoury suspicions.

The sounds will certainly help in that. Because from this moment on till eternity, the 2014 US Open will be remembered as the tournament where Marin Cilic’s shots were heard, and feared, all over the world.