No Stopping Cilic At Home From Home

Marin Cilic is one match win away from reaching the Fever-Tree Championships for the fourth time after a confident quarter-final win on Friday.

The top-seeded Croatian, the champion in 2012 (d. Nalbandian) and runner-up in 2013 (l. to Murray) and 2017 (l. to Lopez), defeated fifth seed and 2010 titlist Sam Querrey of the United States 7-6(3), 6-2 in 79 minutes on a perfect day at The Queen’s Club, venue of the ATP World Tour 500 tournament since 1890.

Cilic, now 25-9 on the 2018 season, will next look to beat Australia’s Nick Kyrgios, last week’s MercedesCup semi-finalist, or defending champion Feliciano Lopez in Saturday’s semi-finals.

Having beaten Querrey in all five of their previous FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings (4-0 on grass), the pressure was on Cilic. The Croatian breathed a huge sigh of relief after he clinched the 51-minute first set, having failed to convert one set point chance at 5-4 on Querrey’s serve at 30/40. Querrey won the first two points of the tie-break, but solid hitting from Cilic on four successive points helped him. In a close opener, Cilic had won 19 of his 21 first-service points, hitting five aces, while Querrey had won 26 of his 31 first deliveries and six aces.

Cilic, playing with greater confidence in the second set, broke at the third time of asking in the opening game and won nine straight points to a 4-0 advantage. Cilic, who lost five of his service points in the second set, also beat Querrey 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 in the 2012 semi-finals. The 29-year-old Croatian star now has a 27-9 record on his 12th appearance at the historic grass-court tournament.

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