After his 2014 US Open title run was largely written off as a fluke, Marin Cilic has been looking to silence the doubters and is half way to defending his title. However, the matches will get much tougher from here on as he takes on Jo-Wilfried Tsonga next, with Novak Djokovic likely awaiting in the semi-finals for the winner.

Cilic defeated Kei Nishikori in last year’s final and a quarter-final rematch was largely expected after the pair were drawn in the same quarter. However, Nishikori’s round one loss opened up the draw for someone to make a run and it was Jo Wilfried Tsonga that took advantage. The Frenchman has not been broken all tournament or lost a set on his way to the quarter-finals thanks to some impressive serving while he has lost 5 or more games in a set just once of the 12 possible times.

Cilic’s journey to the quarter-finals hasn’t been as smooth, most notably being taken to five sets by Mikhail Kukushkin who had previously defeated Dimitrov in the tournament. Aside from a mid second set blip, Cilic was solid in a four set victory over Jeremy Chardy in the previous round. The win secured Cilic’s second grand slam quarter-final running after he did the same at Wimbledon.

With Tsonga in such imperious serving form, he has to be considered the early favourite to win the match. The dominant form that saw Cilic storm to the title last year is not to be seen while Tsonga is a step up from Chardy. Cilic has taken the last three matches that these two have played, two of which were on hard courts, to lead the head to head 4-3.