Nine match points not enough for Marin Cilic, who begins comeback with brutal loss

There are losses from match point up. There are losses from two match points up—don't remind Roger Federer about some of those.

Then there are losses from nine match points up.

Don't ask Marin Cilic about that.

In astonishing fashion, Cilic, the 35-year-old former US Open champion, couldn't close out Jan-Lennard Struff in Hong Kong despite having all of those chances.

Rust? Sure, Cilic had plenty of that, having not played a match since July, one of just two matches in 2022. A right knee injury last January required surgery, and a setback sidelined him for the remainder of the season following his brief comeback.

Then again, it's not like Struff was on a recent heater; he was beginning a new season as well, having not played since early November.

When you start getting past your fourth match point—at any level of tennis, really—it simply becomes a battle of nerves, the pressure of each MP compounding each time. It doesn't matter how well you played to earn another match point, it matters what happens in that moment.

Cilic, obviously, could not meet those moments.

The Croat lost 3-6, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (7) despite, per @JoseMorgado:

• A 6-3, 5-2 lead
• Twice serving for the match
• Five match points in the second set
• Four match points in the third set
• A 5-3 lead in the third-set tiebreak

Struff, on the other hand, met the moment. Cilic didn't even play the final point of this marathon match poorly—funny how that happens when the pressure's off:

This is cinema, Martin Scorcese might say, albeit a horror pic for Cilic. He can take solace that no defeat for the rest of 2024 should be as brutal as this one—we hope.

Struff advances at the ATP 250 to play Sebastian Ofner.