United by the past, divided by their goal

Sports Writer

Wednesday 5 September 2012

MARIN CILIC and Andy Murray go back a long way.

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Stewart Fisher

How close they currently are will only become clear at Flushing Meadows tonight. Not only did the 23-year-old Croatian inflict a painful defeat against the Scot in their only previous meeting at this venue, he was a talented junior player – ranked No.1 by the ITF – who won the French Open boys championship in 2005, prevailing over the Scot at the semi-final stage.

Apart from that, however, the other six senior meetings between the two have brought only discomfort for the man who left his native Medjugorge, in Bosnia-Herzegovina for San Remo on the French-Italian border at the age of 14. Uprooting himself from his immediate family as a teenager saw Cilic take up with Bob Brett, the illustrious Australian who is a former coach of Boris Becker and Goran Ivanisevic, and the fact the two men are still working together says it all about the potential Cilic possesses within that wiry 6ft 6in frame. Having been ranked as high as No.9 in April 2010 and as low as 32 little more than 12 months later, the 23-year-old has won two titles this year – one by default at Queen's due to David Nalbandian's indiscretion – and finds himself knocking on the door of the top echelon again at No.13."I'd say I'm different player," Cilic said. "A few things have evolved. There's a couple of things I'm still working on. But in another way I feel I'm much better, much more experienced in all different areas, about how to deal with different situations on the court if I go behind, if I'm down a break or two breaks even."In the immediate aftermath of that Queen's Club title, Cilic lost heavily to Murray in the last 16 at Wimbledon, a match played out over two days during which his early momentum dissipated around a rain delay. But six of his eight titles have come on hard courts, and Cilic is not the type who will be beaten before the match commences."Generally we have had a lot of close matches," the 23-year-old said. "But I know Andy is really tough for me to play. He's one of the greatest players of this era. On certain days he can serve well, defend well. All things can really go in a good direction for him and it is tough to find some openings what to do. But when I'm playing well, when I feel well, I feel I can match up with anybody."He played really well at Wimbledon and had a great serving day, or two days. But grass is different. Andy's obviously playing well. But it will be really interesting to play against him also just to feel what he can do and what I can do in this moment."The layman might look at Milos Raonic and Cilic and reckon they present similar challenges – both tall, powerful, right-handed Eastern Europeans with a Bond villain appearance. But Cilic will move better and return better, albeit without the same juice in his serve. While Murray is in his eighth successive grand slam quarter final, this is the first time the Croat has reached this stage since the 2010 Australian Open, where his run was ended by the Scot in the semi-finals. It would be nice to imagine a similar outcome today.

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United by the past, divided by their goal

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