By Chris Oddo | Sunday August 21, 2016
Marin Cilic surged past Andy Murray to claim his first career Masters 1000 title on Sunday in Cincinnati.
Photo: Christopher Levy
Marin Cilic woke up on the right side of the bed on Sunday, and it showed. The No.12-seeded Croatian didn’t get to bad until 4 A.M. after his three-set semifinal triumph over Grigor Dimitrov, but Cilic navigated a quick turnaround and sailed past a red-hot Andy Murray in the Western and Southern Open final, 6-4, 7-5.
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“I went to sleep around 4:00 and woke up a little bit before 11:00,” Cilic said. “That was enough to recover.”
The 27-year-old did more than simply recover. He hit triple the winners of Murray and dropped just six first-serve points to claim his first Masters 1000 and 15th career title.
After the pair split the first four games of the opening set, Cilic upped his level and broke twice successively to take a double-break, 5-2 lead. Murray regained one of the breaks but Cilic held to 15 in the tenth game to take the first set.
The second set remained level through ten games but a 95 MPH winner from Cilic gave him his fifth break point of the eleventh game and he converted on the next point when Murray netted a forehand.
Cilic served out the match in his first try, converting his second championship point and unleashing a celebration that was every bit as emphatic as his performance.
“I felt that this week I played really great tennis,” Cilic told reporters after the match. “That's obviously a big sign for me for moving forward. Obviously this is the best week that I've played since 2014 US Open. Even last year I was having some good tournaments but searching still for my game.”
Cilic becomes the first non Big 4 player to win the Cincinnati title since 2006, when Andy Roddick took the title.
“Just goes to show the consistency of the top players over the last ten years or so has been phenomenal,” Murray, who has his 22-match winning streak snapped with the loss, said.
Cilic won for just the third in 14 career meetings against Murray. After snapping an 11-match losing streak against the Top 10 in March he has now won four of his last seven against the Tour’s elite.
“Today I felt that the serve was a big factor in the game,” he said. “I was hitting a lot of big serves in important points, and I was definitely in that second set very, very mentally strong. Andy was starting to play a bit better, and, I mean, definitely huge win against Andy who has been in a great run last couple months.”