Marin Cilic has won Croatia’s first Davis Cup title since 2005. The US Open winner is the clear favourite in the encounter with Jeremy Chardy.
7:6 and 6:2, with this lead you can work well in every best-of-five tennis match. Especially when there is a man on the other side of the net who has never before managed to make up a 2-0 deficit. So the prospects were good for Marin Cilic in November 2016 in the fourth match of the Davis Cup final against Juan Martin del Potro.
The Croats led DelPos Argentinians 2-1, as well as France in the current edition. The result was a bit different (in 2016 the Croats had won the doubles, del Potro had won his singles against Ivo Karlovic on the first day), but Cilic might still remember the missed chance of two years ago.
The Croatian number one has made an excellent start to the year by making it to the Australian Open finals, winning his second Grand Slam title on the racquet against Roger Federer in Melbourne. In the fifth set, however, he had a short period of weakness, which the Swiss could use mercilessly and by no means unhappily in his favour.
Cilic then played, as usual, a solid season, reached the semi-finals in Rome – and a few weeks later won the only title of the season at the London Queen´s Club. In the final against Novak Djokovic. Against whom he lost in Cincinnati as well as in Paris-Bercy and most recently at the ATP Finals in London.
Jeremy Chardy is now scheduled for Sunday in Lille, unless Yannick Noah pulls Lucas Pouille out of his quiver after all. The balance against Chardy is just positive for Cilic with 3:2 successes, for the first time the two faced each other on clay in Munich in 2009, then the Frenchman prevailed in three sets.
However, the impressions from Friday let Marin Cilic go into the third singles as the clear favourite: The Croatian finally survived the few critical situations against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Chardy had no chance against Borna Coric from the beginning. But so was Juan martin del Potro 2016 against Cilic in Zagreb.