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This time twelve months ago, Marin Cilic was banned for four months for testing positive to a banned drug at a small event in Munich.
It prevented him from playing at the US Open, where he had twice previously been a quarter-finalist.
But now, he is a Grand Slam champion, etching his name into history by becoming the first man from his country since his coach Goran Ivanisevic won Wimbledon in 2001 to win a title at the highest level of tennis.
Cilic, who will turn 26 later this month, defeated Japan’s Kei Nishikori in straight sets to win his first Grand Slam title and join the Big Four, as well as Lleyton Hewitt, Juan Martin del Potro and Stan Wawrinka as active champions in this category.
And didn’t he do it impressively – he entered the championship match on the back of impressive straight-sets victories over sixth seed Tomas Berdych, and the great Roger Federer, in the quarter and semi-finals respectively.
Nishikori, on the other hand, entered on the back of draining five-set victories over Milos Raonic, Wawrinka, and then a four-set win over world number one Novak Djokovic in his semi-final.
On the basis of the world rankings, bookmakers installed Nishikori as the slight favourite as he attempted to become the first Asian man to win a Grand Slam title, thus following in the footsteps of two-time Slam champion Li Na.
He had also won his three previous meetings against Cilic, including earlier this year at the Brisbane International, where he later lost to eventual champion Lleyton Hewitt in the semi-finals.
However, it was Cilic who continued to build on his impressive form as the Japanese appeared to run out of tank after those three aforementioned marathon victories. The Croat also had the experience of having previously reached a Grand Slam semi-final, as opposed to Nishikori who had never done so.
Seventeen aces and five breaks of serve saw Cilic win in the most lopsided US Open men’s final since 2008, when Andy Murray also won nine games against Roger Federer as the Swiss won the last of his five consecutive titles at Flushing Meadows.
Needless to say, it was also the first US Open men’s final to be decided in straight sets since that same year.
Cilic’s breakthrough not only comes twelve months after he missed the tournament last year due to a doping ban, but also after its expiry his decision to take on Goran Ivanisevic as his coach, which paid off handsomely.
Ivanisevic was the last Croatian man, or woman, to win a Grand Slam title when he edged out Patrick Rafter for the Wimbledon title in 2001. Back then, he needed a wildcard to enter the tournament, as he was ranked 125 in the world at the time.
Thirteen years on, he has guided Cilic to his first Major title and hopefully it will be the first of many more to come. He is the lowest seeded player since Pete Sampras won his final Grand Slam title in 2002 to win the US Open.
And it could also vindicate some people’s beliefs that the order of men’s tennis is starting to shake up, with this being the first Grand Slam final since the 2005 Australian Open not to feature either Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic.
In addition, Stan Wawrinka was also able to break through for his first Major title when he upset Nadal, who was going for a double Career Grand Slam, at the Australian Open, overturning a horror record against him to do so.
This year marked the first time since 2003, when Juan Carlos Ferrero, Federer and Andy Roddick all won their first (and in the case of Federer, the first of 17) Grand Slam titles, that more than one new Grand Slam champion has been crowned.
With two brand new champions being anointed this year, will this start to signal the beginning of the end of the Big Four as we know it? Or perhaps this was just a one-off and they will bounce back next year?
As far as the rankings are concerned, Cilic’s breakthrough title has catapulted him back into the world’s top ten for the first time since April 2012, with Andy Murray dropping out of it for the first time since July 2008.
He equals his career best world ranking of No. 9, first achieved in February 2010.
Nishikori, who last year lost in the first round to British qualifier Daniel Evans, then ranked 179 in the world, rises up to eighth when a title victory would have seen him rise to a career high of number five.
Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer all retain the top three places in the rankings.
And that’s all she wrote at the US Open, and the Grand Slams, for 2014. The next major events on both the WTA and ATP calendars are their respective year-end championships, to take place in October and November, one week apart.
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