Melbourne: Former Finalists Marin Cilic ended the fifth seed Andrey Rublev’s Australian hopes with a four-set victory to reach the fourth round on Saturday.
Croatia experienced, seeded 27, knocked down Russia 7-5, 7-6 (7/3), 3-6, 6-3 at 2 hours 36 minutes at Margaret Court Arena to book a place in the last 16 years.
It will be the eighth seat of Cilic 33 years old in the fourth round at the Australian Open, where he is finalist Roger Federer in 2018 after overcoming Rafael Nadal in his residence.
Cilic will face the ninth seed in Canada auger-aliastion for somewhere in the quarter-finals.
“I’ve had a good start for the season, playing two weeks of tennis in Adelaide, and I have two good matches here before this,” Cilic said.
“The conditions at night are a little cooler and allow me to go more for my shot and I really line up a lot, especially the return, it really went well for me today.” I feel very excited, I play extraordinary and just look forward to the next match, which is getting harder and more resilient with opponents, but I will try to give the best.
“It was a very clean performance of Cilic, the US Open 2014 championship, and he left Rublev shaking his head with some of the 55 winners.
It was Cilic’s second victory in six meetings with Rublev, which reached Australia’s quarter-finals last year.