World No. 4 Carlos Alcaraz showed respect for Marin Cilic following their match as he underlined that he needed to be fully focused right from the start until the end of the match. In the Cincinnati last-16, Alcaraz defeated 2014 US Open Cilic 7-6 (4) 6-1.
“I know that Marin is a really aggressive player. I had to be really focused on the match,” Alcaraz said after his victory. “I knew that it was going to be a tough match, that I had to be [mentally] in the match all the time.
I knew that I was going to have my chances to break his big serve. So I’m really happy with the performance and the focus in the match.”
Alcaraz closed out Cilic in straight sets
Alcaraz got off to a perfect start versus Cilic, breaking the Croatian in the very first game of the match.
Alcaraz was cruising smoothly through his service games until the 10th game, when he missed out on two consecutive set points on his serve. After Cilic broke back Alcaraz, he also served out the 11th game to open a 6-5 lead.
But Alcaraz didn’t loose his focus as he served out the 12th game to force a tie-break, in which he took an early 4-0 lead. Alcaraz then realized his fourth set point to prevent Cilic from stealing the opener. After winning a tight first set, Alcaraz broke Cilic twice in the second set to complete a straight-set win.
“Obviously these kind of things can happen in really close moments,” Alcaraz said of failing to serve out for the first set in the 10th game. “It’s tough to come back after three double faults in a row to break my serve in that moment, but I am serving really well so I will just train a little bit more tomorrow before the quarter-finals. But I have the confidence pretty high.” Alcaraz now owns a 2-1 head-to-head versus Cilic.
