Wimbledon QF preview and prediction: Federer vs. Cilic

A rematch of a 2014 U.S. Open semifinal will take place on Wednesday at Wimbledon, when Roger Federer and Marin Cilic meet for the first time in almost two full years. A place in the semifinals is at stake.

Roger Federer and Marin Cilic will be squaring off for the first time since their surprising 2014 U.S. Open semifinal when they clash in the Wimbledon quarterfinals on Wednesday.

Cilic memorably hammered Federer 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 at Flushing Meadows, a result that propelled him to his first and only Grand Slam title. Still, Federer owns a comfortable 5-1 lead in the head-to-head series having won all of their previous meetings from the Paris Masters in 2008 through the Rogers Cup in the summer of 2014. The two veterans have never faced each other on grass.

“That was definitely one of my best matches in the career,” Cilic said of the U.S. Open stunner. “You know, we haven’t played since then. That could be another good thing for me that I can just look back at that match and know what things I was doing really well.”

Although neither man is by any means a grass-court specialist, the surface and the setting should make for a particularly high-quality affair. Federer, of course, is a seven-time champion of this event and the door is open for an eighth title now that Novak Djokovic is out. The 34-year-old Swiss suffered semifinal losses in Stuttgart and Halle, but he has been in cruise-control mode this fortnight with straight-set defeats of Guido Pella, Marcus Willis, Daniel Evans, and Steve Johnson.

Cilic has now reached the last eight at the All-England Club on three consecutive occasions–even in 2015, when his overall year was a poor one by his lofty 2014 standards. The 13th-ranked Croat took care of Brian Baker, Sergiy Stakhovsky, and Lukas Lacko without any trouble before getting a second-set retirement from Kei Nishikori on Monday. Although the season has been a struggle for Cilic, Queen’s Club may have been a harbinger of things to come at Wimbledon because he scored three impressive victories there before pushing Andy Murray to three sets in the semis.

“I practiced with him when I arrived here at Wimbledon,” Federer said of Cilic. “He was playing great; 1‑2, 1‑2, 1‑2, serving, boom, forehand, serving, boom, backhand. He’s very aggressive. He blew me off the court at the U.S. Open. I know what I’m getting into. He’s really tough to play…. I’ve never seen him serve that consistently well (as he did in New York). He can clearly do it here at Wimbledon, too.”

But the chances of lightning striking twice are slim; after all, Cilic has never recaptured the same form that resulted in by far the most important moments of his career two summers ago. Furthermore, Federer–as usual–has improved with each passing round this fortnight and he called his performance against Johnson “by far my best match.” That sounds like bad news for Cilic.

Pick: Federer in 4

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