Jack Draper’s hopes of joining the list of home-grown Wimbledon champions were snuffed out in spectacular fashion by Marin Cilic on Thursday when the Croatian made a mockery of his low ranking to topple the fourth seed 6-4, 6-3, 1-6, 6-4 in the second round.
The defeat means Draper’s record of failing to make it past the second round of his home Grand Slam continues for another year.
“Obviously, really upset. Probably one of the toughest losses I feel. Thought Cilic played an incredible match from start to finish. Didn’t let up. Yeah, he deserved the win. But it hurts a lot,” summed up a dejected Draper.
With Draper’s exit, this year’s Wimbledon is now guaranteed to have the fewest seeds in the third round of a Grand Slam since the 32-seed format began at Wimbledon in 2001, per ESPN Research, with a maximum of 28 left that could make it through across the men’s and women’s draws.
Cilic is playing at Wimbledon for the first time since 2021 after having two separate knee surgeries over the last two years.
But his big serve and ground strokes are still intact, as evidenced by his 16 aces and 53 total winners against Draper to secure his first career win over a player ranked in the top five on grass after entering the day 0-9 in his career.
“My emotions are just incredible. Where I was two years ago, I can’t even describe. It has been a long journey but I never lost any doubt,” an emotional Cilic told the Court One crowd.
“It was a long and testing period, plus a huge challenge for me in this part of my career to come back and play at this level.
“To play in front of this crowd and against Jack is incredible, so thanks everyone for your great sportsmanship. I’m just feeling great and hoping I can continue to play well.”
With Cameron Norrie already into the third round, there was much excitement that there could be five British men in the Wimbledon third round for the first time since 1962 provided that Dan Evans, Arthur Fery, Jack Pinnington Jones and Draper all won their matches on Thursday.
Once that fantasy was crushed as Evans, Fery and Pinnington Jones fell by the wayside in quick succession, fans pinned their hopes on Draper, confident that the world number four would give them something to celebrate.
The hollering crowd certainly played their part in digging Draper out of a dark 0-40 hole in the eighth game, with the Briton launching into some thunderbolt serves to rescue the game.
However, all the deafening roars and cheers of the partisan Court One crowd could not save Draper from losing five games on the trot from 4-4 in the first set.
That sequence handed Cilic the first set, with the Croatian producing a scorching service return on set point before he surged into a 3-0 lead in the second.
It was enough to give world number 83 Cilic a two-set cushion.
He appeared to ease off the throttle in the third to raise hopes of a Draper comeback, but the British left-hander knew he was in trouble when he had to save two break points at 4-3 down in the fourth set and two games later it was all over.
Draper dragged a backhand crosscourt wide following a 19-shot rally to hand Cilic a remarkable considering the Croatian had not won back-to-back matches on the main tour for the past nine months.
Cilic will meet Spain’s Jaume Munar for a place in the fourth round.
Information from Reuters and The Associated Press was used in this report.
