U.S. Open Day 15 Preview: Nishikori-Cilic To Decide Men’s Final
The 2014 US Open comes to a close on Monday afternoon as Kei Nishikori and Marin Cilic will meet on Arthur Ashe to decide the men’s singles final, bringing an end to the two-week long tournament from Flushing Meadows.
While Serena Williams winning her third-straight women’s singles US Open title on Sunday came as no surprise to most, the matchup between the 10th-seeded Nishikori and 14th-seeded Marin Cilic was a title bout that few predicted.
Prior to the start of the US Open, Japan’s Nishikori had not played since the Citi Open at the end of July. He needed a cyst removed from his foot a week before start of the Grand Slam and barely had any practice before his opening round match versus American Wayne Odesnick.
In the other corner, tall Croatian Marin Cilic is in the final of the tournament that, a year ago, he was unable to play in because of a suspension due to a doping violation. While Cilic still denies he did anything wrong, he has proven he belongs with his remarkable tournament run thus far.
Both players come in following major upsets in the semifinals as Nishikori knocked off Novak Djokovic while Cilic took out five-time champion Roger Federer, setting up a title match between two players who are in their first career Grand Slam final.
They have met seven times and Nishikori leads the FedEx ATP Head2Head series 5-2 including the last three meetings. Twice before have these two met in the US Open, Nishikori taking it in 2010 while Cilic beat him in 2012.
The two present differing styles of tennis, with Nishikori being a more consistent and defensive player, while Cilic is a hard-serving power player, making for an intriguing matchup. Thus far in the tournament, Cilic has ripped 81 aces and won 83 percent of his first serve points. He has 78 forehand winners but has also committed 112 unforced errors on that forehand. In contrast, Nishikori has notched 28 breakpoints in his six matches and nailed 157 total winners in those matches. The key to the match today will be Nishikori’s ability to return the powerful serve of Cilic and Cilic’s ability to limit his own unforced errors.
A win by Nishikori will bump him to fifth in the ATP World Rankings, while a Cilic win will get him into the top 10, to ninth in the world.
The final gets underway around 5:00 p.m. in Queens today, wrapping up an exciting two-week run of nonstop tennis action. A $3,000,000 payout awaits the winner of today’s match and closes the curtain on the 2014 Grand Slam season.
