Croatia’s Borna Coric had a dream run at the Cincinnati Masters as he went all the way in the tournament. Coric stunned Stefanos Tsitsipas by 7-6, 6-2 in the final to clinch his maiden ATP 1000 Masters title. The Croatian was placed at 152 in the ATP rankings before the competition and he is now expected to climb up the ladder.
Coric said he has no words to explain how he is feeling and admitted that it is an unbelievable feeling. Meanwhile, Coric had earlier suffered a shoulder injury, which had kept him out of action. The Croatian revealed he had to practice more.
“If I want to do my job, which is to play tennis, I need to do this, otherwise I cannot play tennis. I don’t think it’s a huge sacrifice to have an extra 30 minutes of work to get to play tennis,” Coric told ATPTour.com earlier in the week.
“You get to do what you love, it’s not a huge deal. If I usually come one hour before practice, now I need to come one and a half hours. That’s it. It’s not a big deal.”
Coric also stunned Rafael Nadal, who is a 36-time ATP 1000 Masters title winner, in the second round of Cincinnati en route to his title. The 25-year-old, who achieved a career-high ranking of 12 back in November 2018, was delighted after his dream run.
“I have no words, to be honest. It’s just unbelievable feeling. Like I said many times, I [am] just going to enjoy this,” Coric said. “I thought I could play well. I was training hard, and I knew I could play good tennis, but that I could play this level tennis, I was just not aware. I’m just super happy.”
In fact, Coric defeated players like Musetti, Nadal, Roberto Bautista Agut, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Cameron Norrie, and Tsitsipas, all of who are under the top 35 in the ATP rankings. Coric admitted he never thought he would win the title as he was playing poorly.
“I believe always in myself. But again, [it was unlikely] to win the tournament when last week I was really playing poorly,” Coric said. “I didn’t believe I’m going to win the tournament.”
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