Marin Cilic celebrates huge ranking milestone to join Federer, Nadal..
Back in 2007, an 18-year-old Marin Cilic kicked off his journey towards the top-100, qualifying for the main draw at the Australian Open and winning Challengers in Casablanca and Rijeka and earning the place in the main draw at Roland Garros as well. Receiving a wild card at Queen's, Marin took down Tim Henman and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to reach the quarters where Andy Roddick defeated him in straight sets, accumulating enough points to come on the verge of the place in the elite top-100. Unable to repeat the semi-final run in Gstaad, Marin's top-100 debut had to be postponed for a couple of months, finally getting there at the end of the season following the semi-final in St. Petersburg as a qualifier.
Marin established himself as one of the best youngsters on the Tour in 2008, delivering 37 triumphs and lifting the first ATP title in New Haven, finishing the year inside the top-25 where he would stay ever since except 2013 (he served a suspension after anti-doping violation). Winning at least one ATP title for 11 straight years, Cilic has been among the most consistent players on the Tour in the last 11 years, conquering 18 ATP titles from 32 finals on all three surfaces and notching almost 500 victories, becoming world no. 3 after the Australian Open final a year ago.
Since July 2014, Marin never bowed out from the top-20 and he probably can't remember when he was ranked outside the top-50 last time (June 2008), building on those weeks among the best 100 players in the world to reach the milestone number of 600 last week! Marin has joined seven other active players who have achieved this and despite a slow start of 2019 campaign he should be there for many more years, turning 31 in September. 2014 US Open champion has entered a select group of players led by Roger Federer (2021 weeks), Rafael Nadal (837), Fernando Verdasco (791), Richard Gasquet (733), Novak Djokovic (722), Gilles Simon (692) and Philipp Kohlschreiber (687) and we should follow his progress in the next couple of years to check if he is capable of reaching the next targets set at 700 and 800 week.
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2XU1hLj
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