Cilic downs Querrey to reach first Wimbledon final

The key, for both players, was to deal with the big serve.

“Of course you always prefer to play on Centre Court over Court 1, or Court 1 over Court 2 and so forth”.

In the other semifinal of the day Marin Cilic will face Sam Querrey.

“It’s absolutely unbelievable”, Cilic, who improved to 5-0 lifetime against Querrey, said afterward.

Querrey took lead after a brief delay late in the opening tiebreaker.

At 6-6 there was a delay of over three minutes when a spectator fell in the stands and had to receive attention from stewards before being led out.

The 18-time grand slam champion was in imperious form as he dismissed Raonic, the man who defeated him previous year, in one hour and 58 minutes.

Cilic finally managed the first break of serve in the second set, and then went up another break in the third.

But the American dug deep and came out fighting – immediately breaking back and holding firm to force another tiebreak. A solitary service break for Cilic in the second set saw this match start to turn, and it was the Croat who held his nerve in the third set tie-break before finding an extra service break in the fourth.

Cilic and Querrey played at the 2012 Wimbledon tournament a match that is the second longest in tournament history. So I know it’s going to be a huge challenge. Cilic hit 70 winners to Querrey’s 46. Overall I felt the level was really high’. When he broke me back, he just played a great game. “Am I surprised? Maybe a little bit”. Querrey was the first American male to get this far at Wimbledon since Andy Roddick in 2009.

Marin Cilic made his Wimbledon debut in 2007 amid much hype having made his mark in the juniors by winning the French Open title two years earlier. In most of the matches, about 18 matches won by Roger Federer and six matches won by Tomas Berdych.

The Czech Republic’s Tomas Berdych is preparing for a semi-final at Wimbledon tonight against the man he rates as the “greatest of them all”.

He would join his career-long rival and 10-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal as just the second man ever to amass eight titles at the same slam and, at 35 years and 342 days, the oldest Wimbledon champion in nearly half a century of professional tennis.