After four years away from the grass courts of Wimbledon, you could forgive Marin Cilic for thinking a monumental win in SW19 may never come his way again.
After suffering an initial setback at the start of 2023, Cilic required a second surgery on a ruptured meniscus in May 2024. The 2014 US Open champion was back to winning titles by September.
“If I even look at the situation where I was, how my knee was like in February 2023, lots of rehab, lots of unknowns, even coming back, the knee wasn’t good,” said Cilic after his 6-4 6-3 1-6 6-4 win over fourth seed Draper.
“What to do then? New surgery, all these details. Then all the time there was this spark of desire and feeling that my level is still there. Let me give myself another opportunity.
“Thank God, obviously, now in the last eight, nine months I’m playing pain-free and progressing nicely, which is great.
“Obviously this has given me, I think, wind in my back being at home, not being on the Tour, not being over-stressed. I’m now feeling quite fresh.”
The 40-year-old needed partial knee replacement surgery, going under the knife for at least the ninth time in an attempt to revive her legendary career.
And while it only took Cilic two operations to fix his issue, the Croatian was closely following Vonn’s progress over the winter as he was on his own comeback trail.
“I’ve been following, obviously, Lindsey,” said Cilic.
“Obviously, skiing is such an extreme sport where you can’t be at 99%. You have to be in incredible physical shape to sustain those speeds and everything that comes with the pressure.
“So in tennis, you can sort of feel it around, play it around, and maybe not be under pressure as much, but still you have to be at the 100% level.
“After the first surgery, the solution hadn’t been made, hadn’t been done. It left me in the open field what to do then.
“I went through, I don’t know, hundreds of research, read on my own, got familiar so much about that aspect, and spoke with dozens of doctors who actually didn’t give me the real answer.
“So that was the extremely difficult part. Being an athlete and you feel, okay, you have the injury, somebody’s going to solve it. But unfortunately, it wasn’t like that.
“Then it was basically on my own decision that I decided, okay, let me go directly to the US and to speak with four or five doctors and got their opinions. Luckily, I managed to find a solution.”
The world No. 83 will face Jaume Munar in the third round on Saturday, July 5, and Cilic is confident he can make even more strides after shocking the home favourite on No. 1 Court.
“It’s not overwhelming for me at the moment that (win over Draper). Okay, I won. Obviously it’s a huge result,” said Cilic.
“But I’m feeling quite confident in the game, that the level is there. I feel like maybe I can add couple details in the game to even be better.”
