Marin Cilic overwhelmed Kei Nishikori to end a tournament of shocks as one of the US Open’s most unlikely champions.
A significant teenage talent, it was a long time ago that Cilic was last mentioned as a potential grand slam champion before his stunning run in New York. But the 25-year-old left no one in any doubt that he deserved his place in the history of the game with a thumping 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 victory that lasted just an hour and 54 minutes.
Cilic, who missed the US Open last year while serving a four-month doping ban, is the first Croatian to win a slam title since his coach Goran Ivanisevic at Wimbledon in 2001. Nishikori became the first Asian man to play in a grand slam singles final and the 24-year-old has shown enough this tournament to indicate his time may well come.
It was very possible that Nishikori was at last beginning to feel his gruelling route to the final. He had beaten the fifth seed Milos Raonic over five sets in a match finishing at 2.26am, come back 36 hours later to see off the third seed Stan Wawrinka also over five sets and then defeated the world No1 one Djokovic. Something was certainly subduing him – beyond simply the excellence of Cilic – because there was none of the verve that he had shown in those three huge victories.
The occasion got the better of Cilic for a moment with a huge double fault on his first match point, but a backhand winner clinched it on the second. Cilic lay flat on his back in celebration as Ivanisevic raised his hands in the air in triumph.
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