Croatian Marin Cilic, former world No. 3 and now 23rd in the ATP, has qualified for the first time in his career for the Roland-Garros semi-finals.
The Giants defeated Andrey Rublev, No. 7, in five sets of 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 3-6 and 7-6 (10-2) on Wednesday.
For a spot in the final, Cilic, 33, will face Norwegian Casper Ruud, No. 8, or the young Dane Holger Rune, 40th in the world at age 19.
Cilic, winner of the United States Open in 2014, became the fifth active player to reach four aces in four grand slam tournaments along with Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.
He was the first Croatian player to achieve such a performance.
After liquidating the world No. 2 Daniil Medvedev in the previous round, the nearly 2m tall Croatian hit 88 wins, including 33 aces, against 71 unforced errors, to win after the first-ever super tiebreaker. which is 10 points contested in the middle of Roland -Garros.
The match lasted 4 hours 10 minutes.
Another semi-final will see Friday’s Rafael Nadal, 13-time crowned with Parisian clay and scorer Novak Djokovic in a memorable bout that ended overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, at world No. 3 Alexander Zverev.
Source: Radio-Canada
