Andy Murray’s long winning streak has ended with defeat by Marin Cilic in the final of the Cincinnati Masters.
Advertisement
It was the Croatian who emerged victorious, however, with former US Open champion Cilic winning 6-4 7-5 to claim his first Masters title.
– Cilic joins the foursome and Stan Wawrinka as the only active players to win both a Grand Slam and a Masters 1000 title, having lifted the trophy at the US Open two years ago. I had a break point in his first service game and 0-30 in his next service game.
A visibly irritated Murray then repeatedly voiced his displeasure at the noise of the wind in the umpire’s microphone which he claimed was distracting him, but still managed to improve during the opening exchanges of the second set.
The 136th US Open gets under way next Monday.
“When it was said that I wasn’t going to make it worse by playing, I thought: ‘Let’s go for it this week”.
Murray has had a hectic two weeks, taking to the courts in Cincinnati immediately after his run to singles gold in Rio. “That was enough to recover”.
“Today I felt that the serve was a big factor in the game”, he said. Although the Briton broke back in the eighth game and held for 4-5, Cilic served up a love game to close out the set. “I was hitting a lot of big serves in important points, and I was definitely in that second set very, very mentally strong. He’s been on a great run the past couple of months”.
“I was serving really well with one racquet, so I stayed with it the entire match, and was switching on my return games to see if I could improve there. Even past year I was having some good tournaments but searching still for my game”. I was pretty much behind from that point on and it was tough.
The Croatian, who did not win his semifinal over Grigor Dimitrov until almost 1:30 am Sunday morning due to rain delays, ended with seven aces and broke Murray three times. It’s obviously disappointing when you get to the final and don’t win, but it was a very, very positive week considering everything.
Advertisement
Cilic served out the match in his first try, converting his second championship point and unleashing a celebration that was every bit as emphatic as his performance. “So I’m looking forward to NY for sure”.
