Marin Cilic overwhelms Jurgen Melzer to claim the championship title – PBZ Zagreb Indoors 2013
Top seeded contender, Marin Cilic, continued with his dominance upon the home soil by winning his third PBZ Zagreb Indoors championship trophy last Sunday. The world number 12 outclassed the former top-tenner, Jurgen Melzer, in
a contest which lasted for merely 67 minutes on the indoor hard courts of Zagreb, Croatia. He settled the final score line at 6-3, 6-1, to lift the ATP World Tour 250 title in front of his home crowd.
It was a fairly one-sided contest, with the top seeded Croat dominating all the way to his emphatic victory. Cilic took hold of the momentum right from the beginning and went on playing aggressive tennis to route his fourth seeded
Austrian rival in a comprehensive manner.
“Most of my game was working extremely well,” said Cilic. “My returns were really good and I had a read on almost all of his serves. I took my chances and defended well. Overall, I played a great match from beginning to the end.”
Melzer has been very impressive throughout the tournament, winning all his early matches comprehensively but couldn’t post a solid performance in Sunday’s final against Cilic. He kept spilling unforced errors and didn’t avail the
scarce opportunities he received in the contest to finish on the losing side in the end.
“He was the better player today," said Melzer. "I needed it to be close at 4-all, 5-all in the first set to give me confidence. That didn’t happen and he ran away with it. I felt like I was hitting the ball really well at the beginning,
but he hit the ball even better.”
The opening set witnessed a steady start from both sides. No break points were witnessed in the opening seven game of the match. However, Cilic brought an end to the serve break drought in the eighth game and reached a commanding
position of 5-3. He served out of the set in the next game to gain the upper hand in the match.
The belligerent Croatian came out firing in the following and nailed three successive break points to absolutely devastate the fourth seeded Austrian. He finished off his title victory with a breadstick at 6-1.
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