By Erik Gudris | Sunday, February 23, 2014

 

Marin Cilic overcame his own nerves to finally win the Delray Beach Open over Kevin Anderson. Cilic has now won two titles in the last three weeks.

Photo Credit: AP

Marin Cilic is on a roll.

With an early Sunday morning semifinal win over John Isner that was previously delayed by rain, Cilic reached his third straight final in a row this month. Waiting for him that afternoon was South Africa's Kevin Anderson, a full-time Delray Beach resident who was aiming for his second title at his adopted hometown event.

As might be expected with these two players, the opening set was a serving battle which Cilic barely claimed 7-6(6). But Anderson struck back by breaking Cilic in the opening game of the second set. Up 3-2, Anderson tossed in back-to-back double faults to allow Cilic to break his opponent for the first time after holding eight previous break points. With Anderson's play becoming more erratic, Cilic capitalized by taking another break with a forehand winner that just fell inside the court.

But now serving for the match up 5-3, it was Cilic who started showing nerves. A poor game from Cilic allowed Anderson to break back and tie up the set at 5-all. With neither man budging, a second tiebreak was underway with Cilic again taking the lead.

Cilic would hold two more match points, but his tentative play kept Anderson alive in the breaker. With a backhand winner, Anderson converted a set point to extend the match.

After a tight final set, Cilic once again served for the title at 5-4. With his new coach Goran Ivanisevic looking anxiously on, Cilic again found himself in trouble at 0-40 on his serve. But he fought back to deuce and finally, on his seventh match point, Cilic fired a big serve that Anderson couldn't handle.

With that, Cilic could finally celebrate the 7-6(6), 6-7(7), 6-4 victory in the longest final ever contested in the event's history. Delray Beach is now the 11th career title for Cilic, who also won in Zagreb two weeks ago and reached last week's Rotterdam final.

"We finished these three weeks in a really good manner," Cilic said to Tennis Channel about his recent success with Ivanisevic. "It wasn't easy today. I had to go through it. Kevin was serving was really good. It was difficult to put returns into play. But eventually I got the job done."

In the doubles final, top seeds Bob and Mike Bryan won their first title of the new season with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Frantisek Cermak and Mikhail Elgin. This marks the Bryans' third trophy at the event, having also won in 2009 and 2010.