Marin Čilić is a professional Croatian tennis player and one of the most renowned Croatian sportspersons. He was born in Krstine, Herzegovina to Croatian parents. His father wanted him to have an opportunity in sports, which he never had so when first tennis courts opened in Krstine in 1991, Čilić was one of the first to play on them.


He is 29 years old, 198 cm tall and he has been playing professionally since 2005. He has won 17 tournaments in his career. Čilić is currently ranked 7th in “ATP World Tour rankings” with the same number of points (4,445) as Novak Djoković.


After a dramatic match in eight-finals where he was losing 2:0 in sets against Alex de Minaur he made an impressive comeback and won by a very small margin he finally meets his match in this tournament, a Japanese player Kei Nishikori.

The drama certainly wasn’t over for Čilić in this match either, after four hours and seven minutes of a close and exciting match Čilić was unfortunately defeated and knocked out of the tournament.


At first, Čilić was doing quite well winning the first set but Nishikori quickly evened up in the second set. At one point Čilić smashed his racket against the Arthur Ashe stadium’s ground. However it wasn’t enough and after all, he was finally beaten.

Quite sad to see him go, but we wish the best of luck to Nishikori who has become the first Japanese man (or woman) to reach the semi-finals in Open Era. His next opponent will be either Novak Djoković or John Millman.

Congratulations! :)