At the closing of a unlikely seasonthe Croatian tennis player Marin Cilic (196°) successfully began its participation in the ATP 250 Belgradewhere he defeated the Frenchman 7-6 (2) and 6-3 Alexander Muller (68th) this Monday to add confidence and advance to the round of 16.
Practically away from the circuit due to an injury to his right knee during 2023, the former world number 3 enjoyed a little more activity in the current calendar, taking advantage of his ranking protected to appear in Hong Kong, Australian Open, Hangzhou, Tokyo, Shanghai, Basel, Paris and the Serbian event, as well as accepting the invitation in Buenos Aires, although without the desired success when registering six wins and eight falls.
Already in a press conference, the 2014 US Open champion, who scored by beating the local Zizhen Zhang (46th) in both tiebreakerswin the Chinese ATP 250 and lift his 21st title in the Tour, did not evade the usual query about who is the GOAT: “Novak surpassed everyone, he is impregnable and almost impossible to match. “I don’t know if anyone will ever get over that.”
“As rivals and acquaintances, they are sports legends. They have raised it to astronomical levels. We will regret that there is no rivalry, they raised the entire generation to a new level. You couldn’t win the tournament if you didn’t beat one or two of them. What they did is great,” said the man born in Medjugorje, Bosnia, referring to the emblematic Big 3.
Subsequently, the 2017 Wimbledon and 2018 Australian Open finalist compared the style of three of the best players in history: “Novak and Rafa are mentally similar. If you are not involved from the first point you can immediately go home and say goodbye to everyone. You have to be mentally prepared because afterward there is no turning back. With Roger, however, it was very different. “He always served fantastically, played offensively, and knew how to change the rhythm and the game.”
“If I compare them with the younger ones, Sinner and Alcarazit is clear that Jannik and Carlos They are not yet at the same level of mental preparation like Novak, Roger and Rafa were”, closed Cilic, who still does not want to lower the blinds on his irregular 2024 and will face the powerful Czech Jiri Lehecka (31st) in the next instance.
