Jack Draper crashed out of Wimbledon to the world No83 Marin Cilic as he was beaten in a four-set thriller on Court No1, 6-4 6-3 1-6 6-4.
Draper had worked his way up the rankings to No4 in the world and had a decent draw, so plenty had tipped him to go far in the tournament.
However, the 23-year-old Englishman is out on the Championships’ fourth day after failing to contain Cilic, the big-hitting Croatian, who won the US Open in 2014, and reached the final at SW19 in 2017.
Draper is still yet to make it past the second round at Wimbledon at this stage in 2022 and 2024 as well as this year.
The Sutton-born British No1 was seen as the greatest home hope of Wimbledon 2025 but is just the latest in a long line of top seeds on both the men’s and women’s sides of the draw to exit the tournament at the first or second round.
His conqueror, 36-year-old Cilic, is a former world No3 but has only recently returned to the top 100 after falling outside the top 700 due to persistent knee problems.
Cilic’s appearance at Wimbledon this year follows a four-year absence and comes after he became the oldest grass-court champion in Challenger Tour history with victory at the Nottingham Open last month.
“Where I was three years ago, I can’t even describe,” he said in his on-court interview following his scalp.
“It has been a long journey. To be able to come back and play against Jack with this sort of crowd is just incredible.”
Draper was pushed throughout by Cilic, who he admitted afterwards “fully deserved to win”.
The Croatian was 0-40 up on Draper’s serve at 4-3 but Draper showed guts to win five straight points and serve out for 4-4.
The first set ended with a break of serve for 6-4, however, and Draper was again broken in his first service game of the second set, which he lost 6-3.
Spectators inside Court No1 were largely of a Draper persuasion, as expected, and their rallying cries seemed to boost the world No4 in the third set, when he broke for 3-1 in a game where Cilic was warned by the umpire for a time violation after taking too long on a first serve.
Draper soon broke again for 5-1, taking the set 6-1 to stay in the match.
However, he could not knock the ace-laden Croatian off serve in the final set and was broken himself in its final game as Cilic won the match to set up a third-round meeting with the unseeded Spaniard Jaume Munar.
In beating Draper, Cilic became the first Croat to earn top-five wins at all four Slam events.
Defeat for Draper was a tough pill to swallow, but the Englishman’s earnest review in his post-match press conference was that he had not played well enough to win, and that Cilic fully deserved victory.
