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Defending champ Marin Cilic recovers to win 3rd-round match

Reuters

Marin Cilic overcame an uncharacteristically poor opening stanza to defeat Kazakhstan's Mikhail Kukushkin 6-7 (5), 7-6 (1), 6-3, 6-7 (3), 6-1.

Things weren't looking good for the 2014 US Open champion, as Cilic's failings had as much of a bearing as Kukushkin's aggression. Both were sloppy, with Kukushkin registering 13 unforced errors in the first set, though the greatest influence on the set was Cilic's abysmal first serve, getting only 12 of 23 in.

The last time the 26-year-old lost a US Open set was in 2014, during a fourth-round win over Frenchman Gilles Simon.

Kukushkin took the first set in a tiebreak, carrying that momentum into the early stages of the second set, where Cilic took out his frustrations on his racket.

(courtesy: bein sports)

Despite a poor opening set, the match was flipped on its head in the second period, where Cilic regained his serve, winning on 95 percent of his first serves to win the second in a dominant tiebreaker 7-1.

It was never easy for Cilic, but the longer the match went, the more the defending champion imposed his will.

The third set was won by Cilic with little difficulty, with the fourth going Kukuskin's way, though it appeared early on that Cilic would win the match in four. At this point, a clearly fatigued Kukushkin was fighting for his US Open life, exceeding expectations to challenge the world No. 9.

The fifth set was decidedly Cilic's to lose, as he broke Kukushkin twice, converting 50 percent of his break points, to win the final set 6-1 in dominant fashion.

Cilic will now await the winner of Friday evening's match between Jeremy Chardy and David Ferrer to determine his fourth-round opponent, with a quarter-final bout with 5th ranked Stan Wawrinka very much on the cards.

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