Marin Cilic is ranked at No. 4 for the first time in his career, and says he has achieved a "big goal."
The Croat has won a Grand Slam before, grabbing the title at the 2014 US Open, but despite not winning another major, the 29-year-old has again had a very good season—winning Istanbul, reaching the final at Wimbledon, and reaching the semifinals of Shanghai. He wants to use that to make a big run indoors.
“During the season you can have matches that you think they are not so important, but
they become very important if you are very focused and keeping your game and trying to play your game every single match on a high level,” Cilic told press at Shanghai. “That's extremely important. Some of those small wins, if you would call it like that, first round wins or just on tournaments where you are looking for confidence can be decisive.
"Maybe looking at Rafa [Nadal], where he was in Beijing first round down two match points and now on a big streak of 10 wins, nine wins, so it's something amazing. For me, I'm looking like that into the matches. I'm playing Basel and Paris. I like conditions also in Basel. It's indoors, and I won it there last year. So I'm going to play it no matter what here and play Paris and London [the ATP Finals].”
Cilic started slowly during the first three months of the season, but then began to find his rhythm, reaching the quarters at the French Open on clay, and the final on grass at the Aegon Championship in London.
But he got injured at Wimbledon, and when coming back at the US Open, he lost in the third round against Diego Schwartzman. Now he is back on track.
“Another semifinals of a Masters Series event [at Shanghai], something that is giving me good confidence, making me happy, and also my tennis level was really, really good," he said. "I had also tough matches and went through all of them in straight sets. And also against Rafa I created some chances. I didn't convert them, I played great tennis, and that's something which is giving me good, positive confidence for the rest of the season.
"I'm No. 4 and definitely something what I was looking for to reach as my goal. And for me, this process is still going and I hope that I can build up on this game.”