Ten years after his title at theUS Open, Marin Cilic found himself this week at Cassis Challengerwhere he reached the quarter-finals. The opportunity for the Croatian to look back on his improbable victory in 2014 at New-York in the columns of The team. At the time, Cilic had dominated Gilles Simon, Tomas Berdych, Roger Federer Then Kei Nishikori to win his one and only Grand Slam title.
Video – Aryna Sabalenka, winner of the US Open 2024, her 3rd GC
“There was no internet, the world was completely different. Winning the US Open was a miracle”
“I tell myself that it’s impossible to have done what I did given where I come from.”confessed Cilic. “When my father built a tennis court, my grandparents thought he was completely crazy and would have preferred that he build offices instead to make money. My father did what he wanted. In my community, tennis was not present, it was more land for agriculture, tobacco. When I think back, this very small town with no real means of training, there were no conditions for me to become a tennis player. Being in the top 100, playing Wimbledon, as I had written on a little piece of paper when I was a teenager, was already a dream. There was no Internet, the world was completely different. Winning the US Open was a miracle.”
