Ginepri opened the match flat, allowing Cilic to take the first service game from him. After Cilic held serve, Ginepri fell into a 0-2 hole which he wasn’t able to dig out of throughout the set.
The roles reversed in the second set. After Ginepri held serve, he turned around to break Cilic’s first service game. He maintained that momentum to hold serve again and took a 3-0 lead in the set. After both men held their following two games, Ginepri earned set point against Cilic’s serve, making his 6'6" opponent run back and forth along the baseline and controlling the tempo. Though Cilic was able to bring the game back to deuce, Ginepri prevailed, winning the set 6-2 and evening up the score in the match.
It seemed there was a momentum shift after the second set as the crowd began to fill in the stadium and Ginepri heard rallying cries and chants encouraging him to overcome the 24th-ranked player with the killer serve. But the American squandered that advantage, promptly losing his first service game to Cilic just as he had done in the opening set. He allowed Cilic to break him for a second time and lost the set 6-2.
Until the fourth set, Ginepri seemed to have trouble returning Cilic’s serves on the ad side of the court with his backhand, which is usually his strength. He had lost a few key points in that position and looked up to his family in the stands afterwards to voice his frustration. But in the fourth set, he returned two of Cilic’s serves in a row from that position and earned a break to take a 2-0 lead to start the set. After the break, he shouted and pumped his fist, knowing he had discovered the key to returning that dangerous serve.
It looked like Ginepri was going to walk away with the fourth set and force a fifth when he had a 5-3 lead going into his service game, but he committed a few errors early and allowed Cilic to break him. His lead slipped to 5-4, and after Cilic served to hold, the men were tied up at 5-5.
After duking it out with pounding baseline rallies during Ginepri’s final service game, Cilic got the best of the American and took a 6-5 lead. Cilic easily held serve to clinch the match. He looked up at the sky and shouted.
Cilic entered the Open this year on a hot streak after having won the tournament in New Haven last week, putting him at his career-high ranking of 24 this week. Cilic attempted to qualify for the past two US Opens, but fell in the first round of qualifying both times. This year, he did not need to qualify; he entered the tournament as a seeded player for the first time.
Cilic will take on No. 3-ranked Novak Djokovic in the third round of play.
No comments:
Post a Comment