There have been some weird days at this year’s U.S. Open, but none of them come close to 10 years ago on Friday, when Marin Cilic and Kei Nishikori turned the tennis world upside down.
New York was preparing itself for a heavyweight final between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, but world No. 16 and the world No. 11 had other ideas. First, Nishikori took out Djokovic in four sets, and then, after an appropriately dramatic thunderstorm, Marin Cilic came out and thumped Federer in less than two hours.
Nishikori and Cilic were established players, who would achieve career-high rankings of No. 4 and No. 3, but the pair of victories was a seismic shock. Federer and Djokovic were the top two seeds and had just contested the Wimbledon final. They also simply never lost to their opponents.
Federer and Cilic played each other 11 times, and this was the Croatian’s only victory. Djokovic played Nishikori 17 times after the defeat — and never lost to him again.
What happened on that New York weekend a decade ago makes no sense, whether based on what had happened before or what has happened since. The previous 38 Grand Slam finals had included at least one of Federer, Djokovic or Rafael Nadal; 27 of the next 29 included at least one of them too. There was speculation at the time that a single Friday might signal a shift in the power dynamics at the top of men’s tennis. It did not.
Ten years on, Cilic, 35, and Nishikori, 34, spent the U.S. Open fortnight in Europe playing Challenger events, one rung below the main tour. Cilic is rebuilding after knee surgery and last won an ATP match in January 2023; Nishikori has also been riddled with injuries for the last few years.
On men’s semifinals day in New York on Friday, Cilic lost in the quarterfinals of the Cassis Open in France, and Nishikori was knocked out at the same stage in Como, Italy.
So how did 2014 happen? And what do that year’s two finalists remember from the best tournament of their careers?
From Goran Ivanisevic’s busted hamstring and Nishikori’s belief that he wasn’t fit enough to play, to the moment Cilic knew he had the title wrapped up, this is the story of the U.S. Open when men’s tennis took leave of its senses.
Marin Cilic collapsed to the ground after winning his first and only Grand Slam title. (Streeter Lecka / Getty Images)
Ten years ago, Cilic and Nishikori occupied the men’s zone a little bit below the Big Three/Big Four (argue amongst yourselves in the comments).
Cilic was slightly lower than his actual level, because of a four-month absence the previous year after he was ruled to have inadvertently taken a banned substance. He also had the greater Grand Slam pedigree, with a semifinal and a couple of quarters on his CV; Nishikori had a sole quarterfinal to his name, achieved two-and-a-half years earlier.
Cilic had a big game but was generally thought to lack the nerve to win the biggest prizes; Nishikori, standing less than 5 feet 10 in (178cm) tall and weighing under 11 stone, was considered too lightweight and injury-prone. Both had been hyped-up phenoms when they first emerged, with the legendary commentator Bud Collins a big admirer of a young Cilic, while the veteran coach Nick Bollettieri said that Nishikori had the best return of anyone he had worked with since Andre Agassi.
That didn’t mean either of them were given a chance in New York. The winner would come from one of Federer, Djokovic and… that was that. Maybe the Australian Open champion, Stan Wawrinka could have a run, but he was still running hot and cold. Milos Raonic and Grigor Dimitrov were fresh from reaching the Wimbledon semis and assumed the role of dark horse. Defending champion Nadal was out injured, while Andy Murray was still not quite right after back surgery the previous year.
Nishikori almost withdrew, because of a foot injury that required a small operation. He had no practice sets before heading to New York and informed coaches Michael Chang and Dante Bottini that he wanted out. Speaking to the Athletic in separate interviews, he and Cilic detail how they came in poles apart in their expectations.
“We had a bit of a fight,” Nishikori said.
“They wanted me to go. Somehow I got through the first match and started feeling confident.”
Cilic came in feeling “fantastic”. He’d pushed Federer in a tight three-set defeat at the Canadian Open a few weeks before, and when he arrived for a first hit on the Arthur Ashe Stadium, he felt a tingle of excitement.
“I was telling the guys, I mean, this is impossible,” Cilic recalls.
“The stadium, the atmosphere. You can’t play bad on this kind of court. And then they were laughing, saying we’ll see when the tournament comes.”
Cilic also feels his ban, for testing positive for nikethamide after taking coramine glucose tablets bought for him from a pharmacy, made him tougher.
“It just made me more resilient,” he says. “I felt how much I missed tennis. It gave me that extra push and that grit from inside.”
It also gave Cilic the precious thing that no tennis player has: time, to clean up some aspects of his game and heal a longstanding knee injury.
It took until the fourth round for either player to get noticed. Cilic beat Gilles Simon in a five-set slog, having lost his five previous matches against him, but it was Nishikori who was really making the headlines.
His five-set win over No. 5 seed Milos Raonic took four hours and 19 minutes, and equalled the then U.S. Open record for the latest-ever finish. It wrapped up at 2:26 a.m. Crazily late finishes in tennis. Can you imagine?
Nishikori didn’t get to sleep until 6 a.m., but the match took him to a good place mentally. “I felt like I could do this,” he said.
An even tougher opponent was waiting in the next round, and the schedulers didn’t do Nishikori any favours: he was back on court to face Wawrinka around 36 hours after beating Raonic.
He just kept on rolling, playing more aggressively than typically by taking the ball early and cutting off angles at every opportunity. He won another epic five-setter, this one taking four hours and 19 minutes, to reach his first major semifinal.
Kei Nishikori would make two more Grand Slam semifinals, both at the U.S. Open (Cynthia Lum / Corbis via Getty Images)
“It was not easy, but I was playing aggressively and everything was working well,” he said. “Those two weeks, I was in a zone.”
Cilic was charging through the bottom half of the draw, beating Tomas Berdych to take his place in the semis, and experiencing a flow state in matches as well as practice.
“It felt like hitting into the ocean. It felt so, so good. Everything connecting beautifully.
“I found a perfect balance of playing by instincts and playing responsibly. In practice, you play most of the time better than in the matches. Playing by your instinct and playing without fear of the outcome. If you miss, it’s fine.
“But it’s a big mental challenge to transfer that into match conditions.”
The great atmosphere inside his team was a huge part of that serenity, led by his coach, the indomitable Ivanisevic. Cilic’s compatriot had been his idol growing up, and like Nishikori with Chang, having a Grand Slam champion in his corner was invaluable.
“Me and Goran had a great connection,” Cilic says. They even played together in doubles, once ending up on the receiving end of one of the most remarkable types of shots that a tennis player can hit.
Known for superstitions — like asking for the same ball after hitting an ace — Ivanisevic instilled a similar dynamic in New York.
Cilic would go for the same run in Central Park, have the same breakfast at the same time, and have a shower at the same time.
Everyone would sit in the same seats in the car, get the same coffee from the same cafe, and practice on the same court, even the day before the final when the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center was deserted. No one shaved, and the only flexibility was that they would eat at a few different restaurants — Serafina in the Meatpacking District was a favorite.
Ivanisevic’s desire not to upset the winning formula took a ludicrous turn when he defied a serious injury to remain Cilic’s hitting partner.
“I think he tore his hamstring and he was barely walking,” Cilic said.
“Goran said, ‘F*** I can’t move. I can’t run. This leg is killing me. I said, ‘Oh my god. I can warm up with somebody else.’ And he was like: ‘I’m going to warm you up even if I have to stand on one leg.’”
It was extremely hot and humid in New York on Saturday, September 6, 2014, a presumed warm-up event for Monday’s much-anticipated final between Federer and Djokovic. “There is very little enthusiasm for Cilic’s chances in the semifinals… In the other semi, there should be few surprises,” read the Guardian preview.
Djokovic tended to overwhelm Nishikori, but the conditions with a factor, as Djokovic struggled to cope with the warm, dense air at Flushing Meadows.
Nishikori also took the ball extremely early and connected so cleanly with it that he found a way to get Djokovic off balance.
“He was my most hated player to play,” Nishikori said. “He’s such a nice guy but, on the court, he had a better level than me.
“I had to do something different. I knew he wasn’t going to give it to me, the only way to beat him was to be aggressive. It’s not easy to beat Novak with just playing solid.
“It was one of the greatest tennis matches I played in my career.”
Nishikori won 6-4, 1-6, 7-6(4), 6-3. Speaking in his post-match press conference, he said that if it had gone to a fifth set, he wouldn’t have been able to run. In Japan, fans were staying up until all hours to watch Nishikori’s matches.
Spectators in Japan avidly followed Kei Nishikori’s U.S. Open exploits. (Kiyoshi Ota / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Djokovic was gracious in defeat, saying in his conference that the tricky conditions had been the same for both players.
A thunderstorm broke minutes after the match finished, and with Ashe still roofless back then, the second semifinal was delayed.
The next match was forecast to restore order. Instead, things got even stranger. Cilic came out and delivered the performance that had made him such a hotly-tipped youngster, with his serve and forehand at their devastating best. He reduced Federer, more than two years without a major, to a spectator.
Speaking to the media afterwards, Federer said that he didn’t think the defeat would sting for long, because there was nothing he could have done.
Cilic said he was inspired by seeing Nishikori win, still feeling like he had arrived on an open highway where anything was possible.
“I played big tennis — serving big, hitting big, trying to take tennis out of his comfort zone. It worked extremely well. I moved great, and returned fantastic. That was maybe the most perfect match I’ve played in my whole career, without even dropping a set and without having almost any hiccups during the match.
“With the whole stadium cheering for Roger, my first time in the U.S. Open semis. When you put into into context, it was a huge accomplishment,” he said.
Cilic broke Federer early and never looked back. The scoreline was a comprehensive 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.
Marin Cilic made Roger Federer feel like nothing he did on court was working. (Tim Clayton / Corbis via Getty Images)
Playing a major final absent Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic made this a monumental opportunity for both men, and that one neither would have again. Nishikori would have preferred the tougher choice on paper.
“I would rather have played Roger than Cilic, because I think I could play more without pressure. Against Cilic, we are like the same,” he said.
Dominic Thiem recently told The Athletic that he felt much more nervous in the 2020 US Open final than in his first three major finals, in which he faced Djokovic and Nadal. Prior to facing Jannik Sinner in the 2024 men’s final, American No. 12 seed Taylor Fritz said his semifinal against his good friend and No. 20 Frances Tiafoe would be more stressful.
Cilic was playing so well that he didn’t mind, and while Nishikori feeling the strain of all those long matches, Cilic felt as though he was getting stronger and stronger.
The final, played on a Monday back then, was a damp squib as a spectacle. Cilic won 6-3, 6-3, 6-3, as Nishikori, watched by millions back home in Japan, ran out of steam.
“I felt a lot of pressure being the first time in the final,” Nishikori says. “That kind of special feeling was there, with everyone watching us. I was nervous and I really didn’t play great that day.
“I had played two five-setters, I felt that my body was not quite there to play good enough to win.”
Cilic was in control throughout, his outstanding backhand getting him out of trouble when he faced three break-back points, up 4-2 in the third set. When he sat down at the change of ends having held and roared to the crowd, he knew the match was done.
Marin Cilic leapt on Kei Nishikori’s nerves and fatigue in the final. (Al Tielemans / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
“Because before the U.S. Open, they asked me, ‘If I could play one song in the stadium, what would it be?’” Cilic said. “I said Empire State of Mind by Alicia Keys and Jay-Z. It came on with me sitting down, one game away from the title and I just thought, ‘This is it. This is the moment.’
“How can things get better? Impossible.”
Cilic doesn’t know if the timing was coincidental, but two games later he was a Grand Slam champion.
“It was pure disbelief, he said. “You and your body have come through the years of training, of sacrifice, losses, difficulties. Always thinking, ‘Is this good enough?’
“If I stopped playing tennis in that moment, it’s enough.”
Nishikori said his only regret is not winning a couple of those early five-setters faster, to leave himself more ready for the fight. He wanted to focus on how Cilic handled the occasion.
“It was his first final too, but he played great. And I’m still really proud of that run and beating those great players.”
For Cilic, the Monday night celebrations began at the apartment that his team were staying in, while Cilic was still in Flushing Meadows doing his media and other commitments.
By the time he got back a few hours later, “the guys were already half-drunk. They had a tonne of beer, already singing and jumping.”
Cilic and his team headed to the Italian restaurant Primola on 64th and Second, where several Croatian fans had assembled. They partied until around 5 a.m., and four hours later, a car arrived to pick Cilic up to do network news interviews. He even appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, doing a skit about what he was thinking during the match.
ICYMI: Get inside the head of #USOpen tennis champ @cilic_marin with his special #TopTen. -> http://t.co/8YPWZtfzfz pic.twitter.com/zdMtEo9umc
— David Letterman (@Letterman) September 10, 2014
Cilic then went straight to the Netherlands to play in a Davis Cup tie, and he won the deciding rubber for his country on the Sunday. When he finally returned to his hometown of Medjugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a small village of around 4,000 people, Cilic was received by around 50,000. The town put on a festival-like event to celebrate his achievement.
“Just insane,” he said.
Amazing reception of people in my hometown #Medjugorje.#proud #memmoryforlifetime pic.twitter.com/3SYKM4KS3i
— Marin Cilic (@cilic_marin) September 17, 2014
After beating Federer, Cilic pointed to his win and Wawrinka winning the Australian Open eight months earlier as evidence of a change in tennis.
“The guys from the second line are moving closer, and they are only going to get better,” he said. Reports described Cilic and Nishikori as genuine contenders for many future Grand Slams, as Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic would fade from view in the next years, let alone decade.
Cilic reached two subsequent Slam finals, losing both to Federer. Nishikori reached two more semifinals, beating Cilic in the 2018 U.S. Open quarterfinals.
Eighteen of the next 21 Grand Slam titles were shared by the Big Three.
Cilic and Nishikori still get on well and are further bonded by trying to rebuild their careers after injury. Both would love to be at the U.S. Open next year, perhaps to enjoy a belated 10th-anniversary celebration, but maybe that 2014 final was just evidence that stuff happens. The stars align and something comes together that doesn’t have a great deal of meaning for the future.
So as this year’s men’s tournament draws to a close, time to lament the end of Djokovic as a meaningful force, and hail the arrival of a new era when Americans reach the final of every Slam. Here’s to 2034.
(Top photos: Julian Finney; Streeter Lecka; Matthew Stockman;
Gary Hershorn/Corbis / Getty Images; design: Demetrius Robinson)
