{"id":155567,"date":"2025-09-14T06:01:03","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T06:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/155567\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T06:01:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T06:01:03","slug":"marin-cilic-pinpoints-the-difficult-moment-he-thought-he-might-have-to-retire-from-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/155567\/","title":{"rendered":"Marin Cilic pinpoints the ‘difficult’ moment he thought he might have to retire from tennis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For most of the 2010s, Marin Cilic was a giant in an era defined by the dominance of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. <\/p>\n

The Croatian was one of three players outside the \u2018big three\u2019 to clinch a Grand Slam last decade, having claimed the 2014 US Open title.<\/p>\n

Cilic<\/a> enjoyed an incredible campaign that year, battling past Federer<\/a> in straight sets before overcoming Kei Nishikori in the final to hoist the trophy inside Arthur Ashe Stadium.<\/p>\n

He went on to reach the final of Wimbledon in 2017 and the Australian Open in 2018, where he secured a career-high ATP<\/a> ranking of third in the world.<\/p>\n

\"MarinPhoto by Gary Hershorn\/Corbis via Getty Images<\/p>\n

In 2023, however, Cilic\u2019s career took a turn for the worse when, after suffering a torn meniscus in his right knee, he underwent the first of two surgeries. <\/p>\n

He played just two tournaments that year and missed the majority of the 2024 season, which he finished with a record of six wins and nine losses. <\/p>\n

Marin Cilic recalls the \u2018difficult\u2019 times after his knee injury in 2023<\/p>\n

Reflected on his time sidelined due to injury in an interview with \u2018The Tennis Mentor\u2019, Cilic pinpointed the moment he thought he may never be able to return to the ATP Tour. <\/p>\n

\u201cOh yeah, absolutely,\u201d he replied, when asked if he had doubts about playing tennis again after his first surgery. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was extremely difficult. At the start, I was like, okay, I need to do a surgery. I went to see the doctors. How long is my recovery gonna take? Six months, no problem. Let\u2019s do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, day one, okay, let\u2019s push, you know, let\u2019s burn, let\u2019s go for it. And then, after 4 months I was like okay, this is a good level.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first 3 months I wasn\u2019t able to run, and then I started slowly to build up. Actually, the build-up from running to 90 per cent was extremely fast. The body was responding beautifully.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, from 90 to 100, it was like such a hassle, unbelievable. The knee started to swell, so back to rehab, training again to build up to 90%, trying to go to 100 again. You know it was up and down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried to play a tournament, the knee blew up, and then you know the doubts get in. You\u2019re not sure what\u2019s the solution here? Am I going to be able to play anymore?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get your hopes up, then down, then up, then down, so that was playing a lot with my mind, and I had lots of ideas, you know, that I might not be able to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marin Cilic\u2019s results since returning to the ATP Tour after surgery<\/p>\n

Cilic managed to return to professional tennis successfully after two surgeries, and this year has played at three of the four Grand Slams for the first time since 2022. <\/p>\n

In June, he broke Andy Murray<\/a>\u2018s record when he became the oldest grass-court champion in Challenger Tour history, emerging victorious at the Nottingham Open, aged 36.<\/p>\n

At Wimbledon, Cilic continued his hot streak on the surface by reaching the fourth round, knocking out fourth seed Jack Draper<\/a> en route.<\/p>\n

The former major champion has refused to throw in the towel just yet, and with two decades on the tour under his belt, he remains inside the world\u2019s top 60.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For most of the 2010s, Marin Cilic was a giant in an era defined by the dominance of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[430,71858,99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-155567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-marin-cilic","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}