home jobs contact us
Our Clients:
Browse by Sport
Find us on ASAP sports on Facebook ASAP sports on Twitter
ASAP Sports RSS Subscribe to RSS
Click to go to
Asaptext.com
ASAPtext.com
ASAP Sports e-Brochure View our
e-Brochure

DAVIS CUP QUARTERFINAL: USA VS CROATIA


July 15, 2016


Marin Cilic


Portland, Oregon

Davis Cup Quarterfinal: USA vs Croatia

J. SOCK/M. Cilic

4-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4

CROATIA

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Looked good for you in the first two sets, and then things changed. What changed in the third set?
MARIN CILIC: I was just a little bit unfortunate in the beginning of the third to lose my serve at the beginning, and then Jack started to serve really well from the beginning of the third.

Obviously I think he served much, much better in the fourth and fifth set. He was not giving me too many chances on the return games. I had a break in the fifth that's a little bit unfortunate to lose it. I was 3-1 up, 15-Love, and easy forehand in the middle of the court.

Yeah, a little bit disappointed with that, just to lose that opportunity of getting that lead in the fifth set to make that extra step to closing the match.

You know, when I gave him a chance to come back I felt that he started to play also really well. He was very aggressive. Obviously last game I had 15-40 also to come back. You know, just one point where I went for a shot, missed a little bit.

Overall, I think he played pretty good tennis in the last three sets. It's not that I played so bad. I felt that maybe I could have served better today. I was not serving as good as I can.

Just from the game, obviously he's very dangerous. He can play very, very fast tennis. He's got big forehand, so that was I think working well for him today.

Q. You had the injury timeout towards the end of the second set. Neck?
MARIN CILIC: No -- yeah. I felt in one point the neck got blocked in the game before, so I just took the medical timeout. After it was okay, so I was fine.

Q. You had never played him before. Was his game what you anticipated? Anything surprise you about it?
MARIN CILIC: Well, yeah, I was anticipating that he obviously can play well and can play dangerous game. I felt that he was keeping really high consistency on his service games and he was hitting the spots really well in the last part of the match.

You know, I felt that he was with that on a high level today. That was giving him obviously a lot of opportunities.

From the other side, I wasn't serving as good, so he felt he had a lot of opportunities on my second serve. You know, he's a quick guy. He's going to get a lot of balls back to make you play.

Yeah, just a little bit unfortunate with few parts of the match. You know, just the fifth set could have gone either way, I would say.

Q. When the USTA came in and put the court together, Jim Courier wanted it to bounce high. Does that suit your game, and do you like the way this particular court played?
MARIN CILIC: Well, obviously I prefer the court a bit quicker, obviously. But, I mean, I feel that it suits John and Jack's game quite well as they like the ball bouncing high. They got good game for it.

But I'm not feeling that it's bad for me. I'm feeling it's still okay. Just I have to play obviously well on it.

Today I wasn't playing too bad. Obviously I had some -- I felt I had some ups and downs during the game, but I didn't play a bad match. I felt that I was still fighting well. I had a good mental attitude. You know, I was even until the end of the match. I was in there to come back and to try to win obviously.

Q. Today Milos and Simona Halep both said they won't play the Olympics because of the Zika virus. Are you definitely going to play in the Olympics?
MARIN CILIC: Yeah, I'm going to play. A lot of guys have concerns about that, but I hope it's going to be fine.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP sports

tech 129
About ASAP SportsFastScripts ArchiveRecent InterviewsCaptioningUpcoming EventsContact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297