A knee injury sidelined the Grand Slam champion from the courts for nearly a year, to the point where he reconsidered whether to continue holding a racket. After those stormy months passed, he crossed the Atlantic in search of “being again” in Buenos Aires.
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Juan Martin del Potro He shouted to the sky, raised his arms and immediately beat his chest, in a frenzied celebration – or relief – in front of his teammates and the hundreds of Argentines who traveled to Croatian lands for what will be eternal glory for him. tennis: the Davis Cup 2016. In the popular patriotic imagination, the name of Marin Cilic directly conjures up an epic series against Croatia where the Tandil Tower He turned an unprecedented match that will undoubtedly remain in the golden books of racket history. That initial – and much-needed – step to minutes later Federico Delbonis set up Zagreb’s fifth victory point.
Heart and emotion aside, it would be grossly unfair to stop at that scene to talk about the talented Balkan tennis player; That’s a small dark chapter within the dozens of achievements the 1.98m giant can boast of achieving. from 2005 to the present, on a path that can be calmly reflected exactly on Delpowith whom he had walked side by side since Juniors and fought epic battles as mentioned.
Now, in his debut at the IEB+ Argentina Open against Serbian Laslo Djere, the thousands of Argentines who celebrated his fall eight years ago will change their gaze to cheer one of the three Grand Slam champions who will step on Court Guillermo Vilas this week pure tennis in Buenos Aires. Because, surely, there won’t be many chances to see that powerful He will try to reinvent himself after a year of hiatus where he will soon say goodbye to tennis.. “I hope it will be an incredible experience to feel the public of Argentina again”was excited when he announced his first participation in the competition and second time in the country (he was part of the Croatian team that lost 4-1 in the 2012 Davis Cup).
Injury, surgery and setbacks: Cilic’s stormy month
At 35 years old, born in Međugorje, Bosnia, but of Croatian nationality, where he moved as a teenager to train under the wing of the great Goran Ivanisevic (now Novak Djokovic’s coach) at what was a “break point” ) of his career as he expressed to Clarín, He once again set foot on the national soil with the goal of becoming the star he was then. This is almost all 2023, in strict tennis terms, Cilic has lived as a martyr. Nothing, but nothing, is as painful for an elite athlete as being away from his activity, and even more so if he lives it with the passion and enthusiasm that characterizes the thin Balkans.
After closing 2022 again in the top 15 – an exclusive ranking it has not inhabited since 2019 -, it bet all its chips on establishing itself next season. But the story took an unexpected 180º turn: a meniscal knee injury in January 2023, when he played his first tournament of that calendar at the ATP 250 in Pune, They marked the beginning of a nightmare.
He passed the unwanted operating room and when everything seemed to restore his dream after six months in the competition of moldthe same one where he started his professional path in 2005, nothing like what he imagined: he lost in his debut against the Italian Flavio Cobolli, The discomfort in the area continued and he was forced to stop again. As the case studies confirm, the problem has moved to the cartilage.
“If I had thought about retirement”? Yes, actually, in August last year, after playing in Umag, my knee was not good, it was a disaster. “I wandered around a bit, wondering if I had to have another operation.”Cilic declared in a conversation with Ámbito.
They are months of rehabilitation, chosen for less invasive treatment than the scalpel that athletes fear; and the relentless fight paid off mainly in health: he returned to the circuit in Hong Kong to regain his rhythm and then jumped to the Australian Open. Although the results are not surprising considering the extensive inactivity, they are clearly a blow (he lost in the first round in both cases) for a tennis player with 20 trophies, won the US Open (2014), the Davis Cup (thorn removed in 2018) and was Top 3.
The 1044th position indicated in its ranking is just a direct effect of that cursed 2023. natural, The IEB+ Argentina Open will seek to be the hinge point that will reunite him with the best of Cilic: that is, pure power tennis, based on a high-flying serve and an explosive drive which will probably raise the applause of the Lawn Tennis Club; that springboard that brought him back to the front pages, which he navigated through most of his court history. The storm has passed for the Croatian and the dream has changed.
Source: Tycsports
I’m Rose Brown , a journalist and writer with over 10 years of experience in the news industry. I specialize in covering tennis-related news for Athletistic, a leading sports media website. My writing is highly regarded for its quick turnaround and accuracy, as well as my ability to tell compelling stories about the sport.
