Marin Čilić continues his campaign in the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Rome, this time beating Cameron Norrie 5:7, 6:2, 6:1 in the round of 32 on Wednesday.
The British tennis player, even though he is ranked 11th in the world, was helpless against Marin Čilić who played the best match of the season and perhaps his best in years, especially in the second and third sets when Čilić strung together nine games!
Čilić couldn’t win the first set in which he led 5:2. At 5:3, he served for 1:0 in sets, but he did not win a single point in that game. Then, on the opponent’s serve, he missed one set point at 5:4, and after 5:2 lost a total of five games in a row and was behind the 11th player in the world.
But that did not affect Čilić at all, who played in a trance from the middle of the second set. He hit absolutely everything he could and won seven games in the second set!
He quickly won the second set and then took a 3:0 lead in the third when Norrie sought the help of a physiotherapist due to pain in his right ankle. On the way back to the court, Čilić continued his series, which climbed to nine games. Čilić took the 5:0 lead in the third set and thus concluded the match.
Čilić recorded nine aces during the match with a first-serve percentage of 64 percent. He also used 10 break points.
In the round of 16, Čilić will play against the 45th player in the ATP rankings – Chilean Cristiano Garin. Marin and Cristiano played twice in their career and Čilić won both matches.
In the round of 64, Marin beat Matteo Arnaldi 6:1, 6:4.
Source: HTS
To read more about sports in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page.
