(Tennis news) Marin Cilic won his second title of the season with a three set win over coming of age Taylor Fritz at St. Petersburg Open. Cilic had last won the title in 2011 when he defeated Janko Tipservic which was his only title that year. Cilic broke Fritz in the sixth game of the opening set with forehands that kept going faster at every return but Fritz came back in the end to take it to tiebreak.

Cilic continued his attacking play to take the first set, in the second set two crucial breaks earned Fritz a set point as he leveled up his defense game to take the set and force the match to a decider. In the final set, a double fault in the ninth game by Fritz gave Cilic the lead as he went on to win the match with a stylish forehand volley. Cilic defeated Fritz 7-6(7-3), 4-6, 6-4.

Cilic now has won twenty titles in his career which makes him the 6th active player to win 20 or more titles in the game and the last time he won two titles in a year was in 2016 when he won at Basel and Cincinnati. He has now reached two finals in a row as he had finished as runner up at Moscow and also has two semi final finishes.

Fritz had defeated Cilic in their previous meeting at Indian Wells in 2017. Fritz is yet to win a title this year even though he has reached the semifinal stage five times and this has been his fifth runner up finish in his career. The 24 year old had all his energy used up as Cilic mixed his aggressive groundstrokes with dropshots and backhand slices. 

"During the whole week I think my level was really good. I felt that I can still get my game to a better level, and it was a little bit similar today," Cilic said. "I was playing great on some occasions, missing some opportunities, serving for the first set, not making that first set more comfortable. As things went on, obviously Taylor started to play better. But in the end, it was a great mental battle from my side."

Cilic was playing here for the fifth time and the first time since 2011, he had first played here in 2006 when Fritz was nine years old. Fritz was playing here for the second time after losing his first match last year to Cameron Norrie.

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