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Cilic pulls out of Zagreb indoors tennis tournament

Xinhua, February 1, 2015 Adjust font size:

US Open champion Marin Cilic is still waiting to get on the court in 2015 after he pulled out of the PBZ Zagreb Indoors tournament on Saturday.

Cilic has been forced to withdraw from the Australian Open, first major tournament of the season, with nagging shoulder injury that was bothering him even throughout his successful 2014 campaign.

He was hoping to start playing again at the PBZ Zagreb Indoors tournament that he won on four previous occasions, in 2009-10 and 2013-14, but now he had to wait longer than expected.

"Recovery is slow, too slow. I've been out of court for about seven weeks so far and that's the longest period in my career that I've been without touching a racket. Last MRI test showed that there has been progress but I have to wait two more weeks to repeat MRI test that could show my shoulder is completely healed," said Cilic on Saturday at the tournament's draw ceremony.

Cilic's withdrawal from the tournament made Croatian number 2 Ivo Karlovic the highest seed at his hometown event. There are six Croatians in the tournament, including 18-year-old Borna Coric who received ATP award "Star of Tomorrow" in 2014 as the youngest player ranked among Top 100 in the world.

Coric was drawn against former Zagreb champion Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky and could play against Karlovic in the quarterfinal. Ivan Dodig is in the bottom part of the draw and will play countryman Mate Delic in the first round.

Even with Cilic out of the tournament there will be plenty of great matches to watch and a lot of Croatians that local fans will have a chance to cheer for.

Croatian players will play with the hope to emulate what Ivan Ljubicic, Marin Cilic and Ivan Dodig did in the past, becoming home champions on six occasions in the past nine editions of the tournament, first European stop on the ATP World Tour calendar. In fact there was only one time, in 2012 when Mikhail Youzhny beat Lukas Lacko in the title match, that none of Croatian players have reached the final.

"I hope we will have somebody to fight for the title again and continue the streak of home success," said Cilic who has also cancelled his participation at Rotterdam and Delray Beach events that will follow in the next weeks.

In fact, Cilic still doesn't know when he will be able to fight for ATP points again.

"I could start to practice in two weeks if the MRI will show that my shoulder is OK. I will have to start slow and be cautious in the beginning because it's easy to pick up another injury if you push too hard," said Cilic. Endi