It was a surprising result, and not just because Murray was the No. 1 seed and the world’s second-ranked player. Whereas the Scot had coasted through his entire Cincinnati campaign, Cilic did not finish his semifinal thriller against Grigor Dimitrov until 1:35 in the morning the previous day.
“I thought I was going to have a good chance if I played well,” the Croat explained. “I didn’t feel too tired yesterday in the evening…. I went to sleep around 4:00 and woke up a little bit before 11:00. That was enough to recover.
“I felt that I played really good tennis today. The serve was a big factor in my game. I was hitting a lot of big serves in important points and I was definitely very mentally strong in that second set. Andy was starting to play a bit better, but it’s definitely a huge win against him. He’s been on a great run the past couple of months.”
Murray had won 22 matches in a row to be exact, a stretch that featured titles at Queen’s Club, Wimbledon, and the Rio Olympics. But he trailed Cilic by two breaks basically right off the bat and could only get one of the breaks back in the opening set. When Murray dropped serve again at 5-5 in set two, it was all but over.
“I’m very proud of this week,” Murray commented. “Obviously today it didn’t go how I would’ve wanted. But I certainly didn’t expect to get to the final when I arrived here. I had some pretty good wins along the way. Today there were tough, tricky conditions with the wind…. But it’s a very, very positive week. I’m looking forward to a few days’ rest now.”
After that rest it will be on to the U.S. Open for Murray, who triumphed at Flushing Meadows back in 2012. He will be seeded second for the upcoming fortnight behind world No. 1 Novak Djokovic, who withdrew from Cincinnati after being stunned his Olympic opener to Juan Martin Del Potro.
Cilic, meanwhile, secured an all-important top eight seed in New York by virtue of his title-winning performance in Cincinnati. He surged five spots in the rankings to No. 9 and will be seeded seventh due to the absences of Roger Federer and Tomas Berdych.
Cilic’s rise knocked Jo-Wilfried Tsonga out of a top eight U.S. Open seed.
Let’s go Marin!!