Marin Cilic struggled to start the season, but he has been a strong player in recent months. He was in the Aegon Championships final over the weekend, he made the quarterfinals of the 2017 French Open, and he won ATP Istanbul in early May. Historically, at the All England Club, he has made three successive Wimbledon quarterfinals with late-round losses to Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic in those tournaments. On two occasions, he has pushed his quarterfinal result at Wimbledon to a deciding fifth set, showing that he is a dangerous player on grass.
Cilic can't like his draw luck
However, the World No. 6 picked up a difficult draw at Wimbledon 2017. In the first round, Cilic will face Philipp Kohlschreiber, who is himself a former quarterfinalist at the All England Club and not a bad grass courter based on his Halle results over the years. Kohlschreiber is 34 years old now and his Grand Slam results have dipped in the last couple of years. Nonetheless, the first-round match looks to be a tricky one for Cilic and he will have to be sharp in it to avoid being upset.
After that, Cilic shares a draw to the third round with Florian Mayer and Victor Troicki, two players with proven top-20 ability. The seeded player near Cilic is Steve Johnson, an American player whose career has peaked in the last year.
Both Kei Nishikori and Rafael Nadal share Cilic's path to the semifinals, showing just how tough it will be for him to make his debut in the final four at Wimbledon 2017.
Cilic has proven grass-court ability
However, there is certainly good reason to be confident in Cilic as well. He struggled at Wimbledon toward the start of his career, but in four of the last five years it has taken a member of the Big Four to eliminate the Croat.
Cilic lost to Andy Murray in 2012, he fell to Djokovic in both 2014 and 2015, and Cilic lost to Federer last season. Cilic has also demonstrated an ability to win the lengthy matches at the All England Club with three wins in best-of-five set matches over the last five years. In 2015, he outlasted John Isner 12-10 in a fifth set and was still able to summon up the energy to win his match in the next round.
Cilic is considered the most dangerous player at Wimbledon 2017 outside of the Big Four according to betting odds. He is the fourth favorite with Stan James sportsbook, priced at +1400 (14 to 1) to win the 2017 title. That puts him at shorter odds than Milos Raonic and Alexander Zverev, the next favorites with that sportsbook.
