The 1st Round of the Australian Open is in the books and the Croatians did “okay” in singles; winning 2/4 matches.
Marin Čilić is the lone Croatian men’s singles player this tournament as he carries a #27 ranking through the first Grand Slam of the year. Borna Ćorić is still nursing a shoulder injury and is expected to rejoin the tour in the next couple of months. Ćilić made quick work of Ecuadorian qualifier Emilio Gomez in the First Round; wining 6-3, 6-1, 6-2 in straight sets. Čilić will now face Slovakian Norbert Gombos in the 2nd Round. At 33 tears of age, Čilić doesn’t have many more chances of making deep runs at Grand Slam tournaments. He has a favorable draw this year with #5 Andrey Rublev in his path to the quarterfinals.
On the woman’s side, only Ana Konjuh won her 1st Round match as she beat American Shelby Rogers 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 to set up a date with another American, #27 Danielle Collins in the 2nd Round.
Petra Martić lost 3-6, 3-6 to Swiss tennis player Jil Teichmann while Donna Vekić lost 2-6, 2-6 to American Alison Riske.
All eyes will be on Nikola Mektić and Mate Pavić in men’s doubles as they are the #1 ranked team and favorites to win the tournament. Mektić and Pavić won Wimbledon and Olympic gold in 2021. An Australian Open victory is what the two Croatians are aiming for to start their 2022 campaign after Croatia fell just short in the Davis Cup Finals to Russia last month.
Let’s go Mektic and Pavic!!
In footy news, Vrsaljko played 90 min today and had a great defensive game. Still lost the game but a good sign to put pressure on Juranovic and Stanisic. Only played 7 games and 1 start in the league so far but still has 1 goal and 1 assist. That Trippier transfer will really help get him minutes if he stays at Atletico.
https://therealchamps.com/2022/01/19/real-madrid-form-player-start-2022/
Real Modrić lives!
Speaking of Just average looking not loud mouthed men…
Call me crazy and homer glassed right up, but i still build my team around luka before Messi
Our tennis players tend to peak in their teens then flame out.
Konjuh was ranked #1 in her teens Coric as well and Vekic was up there too
Ivo Karlovic says hello 😉
Good thing most of our soccer players are opposite of this phenomenon
I mean Konjuh, Coric and Ancic all had their careers totally fucked by injury and illness to be fair so there’s other reasons for them. Goran obviously won Wimbledon when he was older too so im not quite sure i agree on this.
Vekic started laying pipe far too soon especially with that scumbag Greek Aussie.
That did far more than de-rail her it career it probably ruined her self-worth too!
Marin Cilic is one of the best tennis players Croatia has had.
Cilic got screwed badly in the 2018 Australian Open finals against Federer when the organizers did whatever they could to sabotage Marin.
Cilic is too graceful. I would’ve called them out for that bullshit.
He’s had a good career. One grand slam, but he made two other Finals…which could have been victories.
He fell short for us a couple of times in Davis Cup, but whatever. He’s been very good overall.
The tournament this year is a B tournament now that the Aussies kicked out the defending champ. I’m sure Federer and Nadal are ecstatic.
Coric has been a disappointment for us unfortunately.
We are the top tennis nation (per capita) in the World. This is not debatable.
But we do need to produce a multi-Grand Slam winning talent to get us the recognition we deserve.
Can you elaborate on Cilic being sabotaged by the AO organizers when he played Federer? Haven’t heard this before.
https://lastwordonsports.com/tennis/2018/01/28/reason-australian-open-final-indoors-roof-closed-roger-federer/
I’m too lazy to look for the other articles that went into more detail, but there were quotes from some of the other pro tennis players who openly said that Cilic was being screwed to favor Federer. A few of them were talking smack, but the media largely ignored it.
I feel sorry for Cilic because he’s just a basic looking white guy that the media doesn’t care much for.
Everybody (especially the media) was cheering against Cilic when he won 2014 US Open too. It was annoying watching that tournament and Final, with everyone desperate for Kei Nishikori to win it. Other than race, I can’t see why Kei Nishikori was such a darling to the media. The guy was pretty basic himself in terms of game and personality.
Cilic never got any love from the media, despite being a model professional.
This is why I like it when players talk smack with that Balkanac flair sometimes. Gaslight the crowd and media, lol. Have them boo you ha ha.
Very interesting. Hadn’t heard this angle before.
I remember it well. It started before the game, like the organisers told Cilic the game would be with an open roof and told Fed it would be a closed roof. Now, i dont know if you remember what happened but Cilic couldn’t hit a ball in the court in the first set because his racquet tension was all off. Then when he sent them off to be adjusted he started to smash fed.
That was the first thing, now, do you remember the linespeople? LOL. Cilic had to make about 8 challenges and was always right, every single line-ball call went in Fed’s favour, it was absolutely ridiculous. Also Fed had every game scheduled in air con at night (Melbourne is 40+ degrees here) Cilic played almost every game in the heat of the day. They did every single thing they could to make sure Fed won that tourney, the organisers were desperate, cos you know, commercial success etc. It was embarrassing.