The first time the name of Marin Cilic will have captured the attention of more than a handful of people was back in 2005.

That was the year a 16-year-old Cilic won the French Open junior title, coincidentally after beating Andy Murray in the quarter-finals.

Nine years on and he is now a fully-fledged grand slam champion, as unlikely as it may have seemed a year ago, perhaps even two months ago.

His victory at the US Open on Monday was well deserved, from the manner of final set of his fourth-round win over Gilles Simon to his semi-final demolition of Roger Federer and his nerveless victory over Kei Nishikori in the final.

Until this year, only Juan Martin Del Potro had broken the stranglehold of the big four - Rafa Nadal, Federer, Novak Djokovic and Murray - since the Australian Open in 2005.

Now, in the space of less than eight months, Stan Wawrinka and Cilic have shoved their way into the elite and perhaps, just perhaps, things will never be the same again.

Cilic has always been talented - his coach Goran Ivanisevic says he would always be ranked in the top 20 even without anyone to guide him.

But though he had a big game, a huge serve and big groundstrokes, he lacked the mental strength to compete at the business end of grand slams. His one semi-final, before last week, was in Australia in 2010 when he led Andy Murray by a set and 5-1 before losing his way and allowing the Scot back in.

It seems strange to think that a doping ban - handed to him last summer for taking a banned substance - may just have been the seed that began his path to grand slam glory.

Cilic's defence was that he had taken the substance unknowingly after sending his mother to buy some glucose supplements during the Monte Carlo Masters in 2013.

That supplement turned out to include a banned substance that the Cilic camp missed and he withdrew from Wimbledon when he found out, although at the time he claimed it was because of a knee injury.

Cilic always maintained his innocence and eventually, his ban was reduced from nine months to four months, a lifeline, it's now clear for everyone to see.

"I felt [the break] helped me with mental toughness," he said, "and I was much tougher with myself on the tennis court when I was practising and also when I was playing matches.

"The other part was enjoying myself much more on the court. I had really good success in 2010, then I started to slip a little bit and I was not enjoying it so much, always looking for the result, hoping it was going to come back, but it was not working.

"So things changed around and I flipped it over, trying to enjoy myself on the court and enjoy every moment, which helped me to be much more relaxed. I feel that was the most important part [of the break] for my game."

Back when Cilic was 14, he met Ivanisevic for the first time, a couple of years after Ivanisevic had won Wimbledon with a story even more remarkable than Cilic.

It was he who had recommended Cilic work with Bob Brett, who guided him throughout his career, and the pair clicked. Throughout his time with Brett, Cilic would see Ivanisevic from time to time and the advice would always be the same: go for it. It was advice he didn't really take until the doping ban, when he hit almost rock bottom.

That was when Ivanisevic took the reins full-time and he began drilling it into Cilic that unless he played aggressively, naturally and with intent, he would never fulfil his potential.

It took a while for the results to come but to his credit, Cilic stuck with it and the performances began to improve, at the French Open and Wimbledon, where he led the eventual champion Novak Djokovic by two sets to one before fading.

As a relatively shy man, it will be fascinating to see how Cilic handles the fame of being a grand slam champion and more importantly, the demands on his time that will inevitably come.

That was something Wawrinka admitted had been tough to cope with but in theory, Cilic should only improve from this experience.

Having climbed what Ivanisevic called "Mount Everest"' on Monday, the onus is on Cilic to show he belongs by building on his efforts, and Ivanisevic believes he can do it.

"I think this is his second chance," he said. "First time he was in the top 10, he was No.9, he didn't step up, he stayed there, he closed himself and he didn't believe that he was good enough. Only when you come again, when you get this chance, now you know you're good enough do you believe that you belong with these guys. I always believed that and this is the proof that he does."

Cilic said he was looking forward to seeing what the reaction would be in Croatia. "I feel it's going to definitely change my life," he said. "I don't know in which kind of way, but I am not going to change. I am going to play tennis, enjoy, and look forward to these big events."