By Anand Philar, IANS
Chennai : Marin Cilic of Croatia underlined his potential with a stunning 6-2, 6-4 win over fifth seed Nicolas Mahut (France) to enter the quarter-finals of the USD 436,000 ATP Chennai Open tennis tournament, here Thursday.
The Croatian will take on the winner of the match between Robin Haase and qualifier Lovro Zovko scheduled for later tonight.
Cilic, who at 19 became the youngest player to break into top 100 last year, built his game around a strong serve and was far more consistent in shot-making, some of which left the 25-year old Frenchman rooted to the spot.
Ranked 71st, Cilic opened with a service break in the third game and then got another in the fifth to wrap up the set in just 28 minutes.
Despite coming off a strong season during which he twice beat top-10 player Nikolai Davydenko and climbed to 45 in the rankings, Mahut seemed under pressure played rather badly tonight. Neither was he serving deep enough nor were his shots sharp enough to fetch him points.
Having lost the first set, Mahut was at his best in the early part of the second when he broke back to level at 1-1 and held for a 2-1 advantage. It was the only time in the match the Frenchman led.
Mahut dropped serve yet again in the fifth after five deuces and Cilic seemed content to let the set progress with serve to eventually run out a convincing winner.
Cilic also used his considerable height (6ft-5in) and reach to come up with some unbelievable returns and looked sharp and mobile from the backcourt from where he fired a majority of his winners.
Mahut, in contrast, made a hash of the few opportunities that came his way, especialy in the sixth game of the second set when he was up two breakpoints. On both occasions, he hit wide to let Cilic off the hook.
The 75-minute match that was not always of the highest quality, had Cilic sending down eight aces to Mahut’s four. The Croatian converted four of the 12 breakpoints as against Mahut who cashed in on just one of three.
On his win, Cilic said. “I played consistently well in the first set, but had some problems in the second. But I served well throughout the match.”
“My target last year was to get into top 100 which I achieved at the end of the season when I won a few matches against higher ranked players. For 2008, I want to break into top 40,” he added.