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.
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.
“In this part of [my] career, to come back to play at this level, in front of this crowd, against Jack, it’s just incredible,” Cilic said.
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, the 2014 U.S. Open champion and 2017 Wimbledon runner-up, 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 and two games later it was all over.
Draper dragged a forehand wide following a lengthy rally to hand Cilic a remarkable victory considering the Croatian had not won back-to-back matches on the main tour for the past nine months.
Cilic was one of seven men aged 33 or older who played at Wimbledon on Thursday. His win means five of them will reach the third round.
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 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.
Source: espn.com