Jannik Sinner claimed he struggled against Cilic<\/a> at the recent China Open and the draw in Shanghai hasn\u2019t been any kinder to the Croatian, with Djokovic<\/a> now set to face him. <\/p>\n Cilic has claimed that he considered retiring<\/a> amid some poor form and injury issues but now, the 2014 US Open<\/a> champion appears to be enjoying his tennis once more. <\/p>\n The 37-year-old faced Nikoloz Basilashvili on Wednesday and after a 6-3, 7-6 win, he\u2019s now become third on a pretty intriguing list of statistics. <\/p>\n Cilic<\/a> has enjoyed quite the career, winning a Grand Slam title and also making two other finals across a very colourful career. <\/p>\n The experienced player, who was the world number three in 2017, reached a Wimbledon<\/a> final during that year and also made the Australian Open<\/a> final in 2018. <\/p>\n Now, he\u2019s managed to win a 30th match of his career in China, which is the most of any player not named Novak Djokovic<\/a> or Alexander Zverev<\/a>. <\/p>\n Cilic is brilliant on hard courts, and it\u2019s fair to say that Djokovic could have been given an easier game in his first competitive match since the US Open. <\/p>\n Cilic is better than his ranking suggests<\/p>\n When Cilic played Draper at Wimbledon, his quarter of the draw opened up, and many predicted a solid run through the tournament. <\/p>\n However, he ran into an inspired Flavio Cobolli in the fourth round, and a four-set defeat denied him a first quarterfinal at the All England Club since he reached the final in 2017. <\/p>\n Cilic is 37, but it\u2019s fair to say that a player with his quality is capable of being ranked higher in the world than the 38th place where he currently finds himself. <\/p>\n Clearly, the Croatian likes playing tennis in China, and he hopes to send shockwaves across the tennis world and send Djokovic packing on Friday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Shanghai Masters has got underway today, and Marin Cilic has set up a mouthwatering clash with Novak…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[6733,49,48,76149,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-184030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-marin-cilic","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Marin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-2234562309-1024x684.jpg\")
Photo by David Jerkovic\/Pixsell\/MB Media\/Getty ImagesMarin Cilic has just done something only two other players can beat<\/p>\n