MARIN CILIC REACHES ST. PETERSBURG OPEN FINAL AGAIN AFTER A 10-YEAR LONG HIATUS

The 33-year-old Croat Marin Cilic downs the Dutch Botic van de Zanschulp – 6/3, 6/3. Marin simply outclassed the 26-year-old player from the Netherlands. Cilic had 4 times more winners (20-5).

“I even surprised myself today with how many balls I managed to get, namely in the last game at 30/30 I ran down that drop shot and hit the ball down the line. I was a great winner, lots of them today”, said Cilic in his on-court interview. “Russia is my second home. I think this is an invitation for me to come every single year. I will definitely consider it and I always enjoy playing here. It would be amazing to win the title tomorrow, but playing against Taylor, who has been showing amazing tennis over the last several weeks is going to be difficult. But I’ll just try to enjoy, I’ll try to play like I did today, and try to improve obviously and have fun” – Cilic added.

Thus, the St. Petersburg Open final will be the second time when Fritz and Cilic will face on the court, the previous time was in Indian Wells in 2017 with the American winning that match.