MARIN CILIC CLINCHES PLACE IN BARCLAYS ATP WORLD TOUR FINALS, MAX MIRNYI (THE BEAST) AND TREAT HUEY SECURE FINAL DOUBLES SPOT

Written by: Staff on 3rd November 2016

MARIN CILIC CLINCHES PLACE IN BARCLAYS ATP WORLD TOUR FINALS, MAX MIRNYI (THE BEAST) AND TREAT HUEY SECURE FINAL DOUBLES SPOT |

By Ricky Dimon

A second-half hot streak is sending Marin Cilic to the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. Cilic, the Cincinnati champion and also a recent title winner in Basel, became the seventh man to qualify for London when he defeated fellow contender David Goffin 6-3, 7-6(9) in the third round of the BNP Paribas Masters on Thursday afternoon.

Goffin failed to serve out the second set 5-3 before it was Cilic’s turn to squander opportunities. The 10th-ranked Croat blew match points at 6-3, 6-4, 6-5, 7-6, and 8-7 in the ensuing tiebreaker before finally clinching victory at 10-9.

“In some moments of the match, I could have done a bit better,” Goffin lamented. “But he played well and he didn’t give me many opportunities.”

“I was expecting it,” Cilic said of his mentality going into the 2016 campaign. “That’s what I was playing for. I have been in this battle for London for a few years. You can say I’m getting experienced in that, so it’s something that is giving me a lot of confidence…. [It] was the goal of the season for me, to reach London. Obviously the top 8 is something that all the players in the world are wishing for.

“It’s one of the best tournaments in the world, for sure, to battle it out with best in that kind of a format. It’s definitely something special, so it’s great for me that I achieved it–especially in this kind of way over the past few weeks. I earned it, and that’s an even bigger plus.”

As for the doubles race, Max Mirnyi and Treat Huey also clinched a spot–the final spot, in fact–on Thursday. Although they earned it with stellar play early in the season, they did not secure their berth in the same kind of fashion as Cilic. Instead, Mirnyi and Huey–who lost in the Paris first round to Henri Kontinen and John Peers–needed defending London champions Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau to lose prior to the semifinals. That is exactly what happened, as Jack Sock and Nicholas Monroe defeated Rojer and Tecau 2-6, 6-3, 10-7 during second-round action on Thursday afternoon.

Mirnyi will be making his 10th career appearance in the year-end championship, while this marks the debut for Huey.