Marin Cilic eases past Milos Raonic in opening round bout – Valencia Open 2011
Marin Cilic, Croatian world No.20, jolted Milos Raonic, world No.27, as the two collided in the opening round melee of Valencia Open on Wednesday, 2nd of November at Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, Valencia, Spain. Brawling out on hard indoor
circuits, it took the Croatian an hour and 31 minutes to finish off the match 6-4, 6-4.
Comparatively, Cilic had a better prior ten match run winning the title at St. Petersburg, Russia. Raonic, on the other hand, could not handle the flaming Croatian and lost in straight sets.
Making their way onto the blue hard court, Raonic won the toss and opened up the fixture. Unable to make an impact, the Canadian 20-year-old broke down as Cilic outplayed the first game and served out the second, with a triple game point win, to lead the
set winning two straight games, 2-0.
Serving his second game, Raonic finally bagged a winner, 1-2, however, was unable to cut down the lead and level up. On the contrary, Cilic maintained his lead with a rock solid defence, not letting the well equipped Canadian any room to break him.
With the scores at 5-3, Raonic bagged a triple game point win, however, was unable to break and lost as Cilic won a double game point win, to finish off the set winning, 6-4, and moves onto set two.
Struggling in the first set, Raonic once again stepped ahead to serve the set opener and once again was broke down the huge Croatian, 0-1. Cilic, dominating throughout the game, saved a near breakpoint to extend his lead to 2 games to zero.
Serving out game three of the set, world No.27 finally rolled down his side of the scoreboard, 1-2, switching the serve back to the higher ranked rival. Cilic, playing surprisingly well, hammered away another winner to keep his two games lead on the board,
3-1.
The Canadian world No.27 did play a better knock, however, his one mistake lead him to lose the match in no more than 90 minutes. Finishing off with another 6-4 win, this time in the second set, Cilic outgunned the lower ranked Canadian to move on to the
next stage of the ATP World Tour 500 event.
Statistically, both players had played equalled well. Winning with a mere 8 point difference, 69, Cilic made full use of even a single time he got a chance to strike his lower ranked competitor. Anyhow, through to stage two, world No.20 will now play Spaniard,
Marcel Granollers to battle out the quarter-final seat.
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