"‘Let me give myself another opportunity”: Marin Cilic shares details of gritty comeback inspired by a 40-year-old skier

Croatia’s Marin Cilic produced one of the biggest wins of his recent career when he defeated Britain’s number one and world number four Jack Draper in the second round at Wimbledon with a score of 6-4, 6-3, 1-6, 6-4.

The victory was a special one for Cilic, who, not so long ago, was on the verge of retirement after suffering a serious knee injury. It was for this reason that the former US Open champion, Cilic, also missed the last three Wimbledon editions.

During his time off the court, Cilic found a unique inspiration in Skiing legend Lindsey Vonn. The 40-year-old went through nine surgeries and had to eventually opt for knee replacement surgery to finally return to the circuit after a break of six years following her retirement. Cilic spoke to TNT Sports after his win over Draper, where he provided detailed information about his recovery process. Cilic stated that he could not have imagined such a result 24 months back. Cilic also went on to highlight that he kept track of Vonn’s recovery journey, who was a big source of inspiration for him.

" I've been following Lindsey Obviously. Skiing is such an extreme sport where you can't be at 99%,” said Cilic. “If I even look at the situation where I was, how my knee was like in February 2023, the knee wasn't good. What to do then? New surgery, all these details. All the time, there was this spark of desire and feeling that my level is still there. Let me give myself another opportunity. After the first surgery, the solution hadn't been made, hadn't been done. It left me in the open field what to do then. I went through, I don't know, hundreds of research, read on my own, got familiar so much about that aspect, and spoke with dozens of doctors who actually didn't give me the real answer. So that was the extremely difficult part. Being an athlete and you feel, okay, you have the injury, somebody's going to solve it. But unfortunately, it wasn't like that. Then it was basically on my own decision that I decided, okay, let me go directly to the US and to speak with four or five doctors and got their opinions. Luckily, I managed to find a solution."