A historic achievement! Experienced Croatian wins ATP tournament from the position of player number 777

That kind of performance will be hard to top. Croatia’s Marin Cilic won an ATP tournament from the lowest starting position on the rankings in history. How has his journey through the tournament in Hangzhou, China, been and how much has this achievement moved him up?

• Croatian tennis player Marin Cilic triumphs at the tournament in China
• After long-term health problems, he started the tournament from the eighth position in the ATP rankings
• No one has ever achieved such a feat

He’s certainly no rookie. On the contrary. Croatia’s Marin Cilic is a very experienced tennis player. The 35-year-old tennis player also knows very well how to win an ATP tournament. In fact, he has already won twenty triumphs in his career.

The most successful was Cilic in 2014. Back then he conquered four ATP events and won the Grand Slam title at the US Open.

However, he has struggled in recent years due to injuries and his results this year have been dismal. In the six tennis events he participated in, he won only three matches.

But that all changed at the Hangzhou Bicentennial. The native of Medugorje, Herzegovina, only hit the first of the events from the Chinese concrete thanks to a wild card.

Cilic wins again on the ATP tour

In the opening rounds, Cilic could not complain about the draw. Three times he encountered players outside the world’s elite fifty and three times he won. However, he defeated Japan’s Uchiyama after a great fight only in the third set tiebreak.

And the shortened games became the domain of the tennis player from the eighth hundred of the ATP ranking in the final matches. He won the tiebreak three times in total.

In the semi-finals he defeated the American Nakashima 6:4, 7:6 and his final opponent was the local tennis player Zhang, who is known to Czech fans mainly as the doubles partner of Tomas Machac.

Both tennis players kept their serve throughout the match. Both of them turned away two break points of their opponent. Both sets were decided by a shortened game and in both cases Cilic was again the winner.

The Croatian celebrates his title number 21. A giant leap awaits him in the ATP rankings. He is currently ranked 210th. More than 500 places higher than he was a week ago.

Source: ATP, X