Marin Cilic had come to India for the Tata Open Maharashtra hoping to play as many matches as possible so as to get ready for the Australian Open starting later this month.
The World No 6, who would be one of the favourites as the field has gotten depleted with Andy Murray and Kei Nishikori pulling out, could not execute his plans and got to play only two matches in Pune. He lost to France’s Gilles Simon in the semifinals on Friday.
However, the Croatian player was satisfied with his overall performance despite the early exit.
“Overall I am satisfied with the level I was playing, still a bit up and down. In the first set and in the two matches I played here, I think I showed good level I am quite satisfied with those few matches,” Cilic said.
When asked what went wrong after he won the first set 6-1, Cilic said he did not serve as good in the later stages as he did in the first set and also did not show patience to wait for the right ball to go for his shots.
“From the beginning of the second set I did not put as many first serves in and started putting lot of balls in and I missed couple balls and lost my rhythm,” Cilic explained.
{{/usCountry}}“From the beginning of the second set I did not put as many first serves in and started putting lot of balls in and I missed couple balls and lost my rhythm,” Cilic explained.
{{/usCountry}}“When I was playing the rallies in the second and third set, I thought that I was just not coming through on the court. My shots were not as penetrating as in the first set so he had a little bit more time to play. Many of those games were quite close, at the end of the second set I had a break point or two and also in the third set I had couple of chances to get into the match,” he added.