Being Goran

NEW YORK—It’s a natural fact that some dog owners end up looking like their dogs. Maybe it’s true for tennis players and their coaches, too. You might have thought so, watching Marin Cilic today in the U.S. Open final against Kei Nishikori, a match Cilic won in under two hours by the overpowering score of 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.

Cilic doesn’t just look more and more like his coach, fun-loving former Wimbledon champ Goran Ivanisevic. It sometimes seems he’s actually becoming Goran.

Start with those beards, so lush that either man might soon give a Talmudic scholar a run for his money. Then there’s the serve. Like Ivanisevic before him, Cilic is capable of logging a couple of 45-second hold games in every match he plays now—something you couldn’t say about him two or three years ago.

Moreover, did you notice how Cilic, two inches taller than his mentor at 6’6”, has adopted the lethal, ultra-quick service action that begins with a quick knee-bend that Ivanisevic once had trademarked? It all happens so fast: One-Two-Kaboom!!!

This talent for mimicry has done Cilic a world of good. He began his quest at the U.S. Open seeded No. 14, and he was expected to vanish without much fanfare at about the time Labor Day picnics were in full swing—he had even booked a flight back for last Tuesday. But Cilic ended up knocking off the likes of No. 5 seed Tomas Berdych and Roger Federer, the No. 2. On his way to winning the tournament, Cilic hit 98 aces, second only to Milos Raonic, who hit 103.

But Cilic also was becoming Goran in another, critical way. He morphed from an introspective 25-year-old with a doleful tendency toward analysis paralysis into a relaxed, loose-wristed lad capable of resisting all the pressure that comes with reaching a Grand Slam final for the first time. His mentor, after all, was one of those rare free spirits who seemed to take everything his career threw at him in stride. That relaxed attitude has rubbed off.

As Cilic said of Ivanisevic during the trophy presentation, “The most important thing he was bringing to me was joy—having fun in my tennis.”

As the honeyed light of sunset played tug of war with the artificial lights in the twilight, it was hard not to look across at the other player box and marvel at the difference between Ivanisevic and Nishikori’s coach, Michael Chang.

For the latter, tennis was an epic and often bitter struggle; it had to be, given his slight stature (5’9”). Chang has helped his 24-year-old protege, who’s an inch taller, further develop his already noteworthy fighting qualities. Nishikori seems to set new benchmarks for Asian and Japanese players on an almost weekly basis, which tempts him to rest on his laurels. One of Chang’s main goals has been to keep Nishikori fired up right up to—and through—championship matches. His rallying cry has been, “You’re not done—there’s another match.”

In today’s scenario, Ivanisevic’s assets were more useful. For nerves were destined to play a major role in this outcome, as Nishikori freely admitted when it was all over. “It was one of worst match I played today, but also he was very aggressive and very fast. I have to say, I was a little bit nervous. A little bit, you know? First final.”

Understandably, both men twitched with anxiety in the early going. Nishikori had a break point in the very first game, but once Cilic held, he settled into a devastating routine during his ensuing service games. In fact, after that first game, he won 19 of the 20 points he served in the set. Watching Cilic these past few days, it was tempting to wonder, “Where has that serve been all these years?”

The answer is relatively simple: It was waiting, under-exploited, for a man who knows a thing or two about that stroke to come along. That man was Ivanisevic, who began to transform Cilic’s game, his appearance, and his playing personality from the moment they began working together last September. It all began with a nice long talk during which Ivanisevic said Cilic needed to play more “aggressive” tennis—that he had to jettison his preoccupation with tactics.

“I was dealing too much with the tactics against players and not focusing on my game,” Cilic said. “It was always in a bad ratio. I was more thinking about tactics, like seventy percent, and thinking about my own game. It wasn't easy to change my perspective and to change completely my mindset. It took five, six months of tournaments to be able to sink that into me. That was the most difficult part. But definitely my serve has improved enormously, and then everything else has followed.”

Cilic also rolled through the second set, during which it seemed that Nishikori was showing increasing signs of fatigue. It was understandable: In his last three matches, Nishikori had played two grueling five-setters and a four-setter against top-seeded Novak Djokovic. But the size difference—the eight-inch height differential between the men was the greatest in recent Grand Slam history—also was an inescapable factor.

Nishikori is a game competitor, and he had a good chance to turn things around and get back into the third set after he was broken to fall behind 1-3. That was in the seventh game, in which Cilic, serving at 4-2, fell behind 0-40. The crowd, hoping to see the match become competitive, was heavily behind Nishikori. The Japanese star seemed to take energy from the support, and Cilic’s nerve—and serve—faltered.

Cilic would dispose of one break point with an ace, but Nishikori blew the other two with terrible forehand service return errors. He rationalized it this way: “I got a little bit lazy in the third set. But, I don't know, still there were so many unforced errors that I usually don't have. It was windy, it was tough to play for both of us.”

Cilic agreed that was critical game. He went into it worrying that he might get broken because he was playing into the wind. He began to serve faults. He wanted to get at least one game from that end, because he felt confident that at the next change of ends, with the wind at his back, he would be able to take that final, winning game.

“It was a bit tougher to just finish the point with a serve,” Cilic said. “The crowd got themselves going. They wanted to extend the match, for sure. It was very tense moment, and I was lucky that I got through those couple of break points.”

Cilic was asked if he remembered where he was on that day in July 13 years ago, when Ivanisevic won Wimbledon. He laughed and replied, “It's the most common question in Croatia, probably. Any Croatian knows where he was at that time because it was such a huge moment, hoping that Goran is going to win it finally after so many years.”

At the time, Cilic was a 12-year-old in a summer camp close to his home. He remembers that he along with all his friends were glued to the television, watching and “jumping around.” And he vividly recalls the enormous celebration that greeted Ivanisevic upon his return to Zagreb. A quarter of a million people turned out to get a glimpse of the Wimbledon champ. Cilic may get a similar reception on Wednesday; after all, he’s starting to feel what it’s like being Goran.

One final detail, for any doubting Thomases out there: Ivanisevic won his Grand Slam title on a Monday, and now Cilic has emulated him in that regard, too.

The message Cilic took from that was clear: “Now none of the Croatians can lose at the final on Monday.”