Hello world!
So here we go, then, for the second game in the ATP World Tour Finals’ Group A and the 11th instalment in one of the least closely-fought head-to-heads in top-tier tennis. Cilic has had 10 tilts at Djokovic and has won a total of five sets – three-fifths of them on tie breaks – while surrendering 25, and all 10 matches.
On the plus side, this year’s US Open champion has been getting closer: having taken a set off Djokovic in their second meeting, back in 2008, he lost the next five in straight sets before extending the Serb to three (out of three), four and then five in their last three meetings, all of them this year. Djokovic said after the last of those matches, a not-entirely-gruelling five-setter in the Wimbledon quarter-finals (his three sets were won 6-1, 6-2, 6-2, with Cilic wresting the second and third 3-6 and 6-7), that he had “played a very bad game” which “was frustrating for me”. And he still won.
So the bookmakers have Djokovic at between 2-17 and 1-9 to win tonight, with Cilic hovering around the 5-1 mark. A victory for the 6ft 6in 26-year-old would be a considerable surprise, but, well, you never know.
Fans of round numbers may like to know that Djokovic has won a total of 600 matches in his career so far, and lost 140. One of those figures will be looking a little less pleasingly divisible-by-10 before the night’s out.
