When The Championships draw is released on Friday, no player with designs on the gentlemen’s singles title will want to see the names Feliciano Lopez or Marin Cilic in his vicinity. Outstanding in separate halves of the Aegon Championships draw this week, the Spaniard and Croatian produced a classic final showdown at the Queen’s Club to complete the perfect preparation for Wimbledon.
Having seen a championship point come and go against Grigor Dimitrov in the 2014 final, it was Lopez who held his nerve after two and a half hours of outstanding grass court tennis from both men. The world No.32 saved his second match point of the week in the deciding tiebreak to prevail 4-6, 7-6(2), 7-6(8) and claim the biggest title of his 20-year career.
“I cannot believe that I have finally won this trophy,” said three-time Wimbledon quarter-finalist Lopez, who has now won half of his six ATP titles on grass. “I have been waiting for so long, 15 or 16 years, to be here holding this trophy.
“I thought at the end of the tiebreak, after missing match points, that I was not going to be able to make it. It is tough to put the match where I lost to Dimitrov out of my mind. I was serving for the match again and it was difficult to handle my nerves, but I managed it. It is tough to believe at 35 that I am playing my best tennis, but I think I am.”
Lopez is the oldest man to lift the Queen’s Cup since 1929, when Bill Tilden shared the grand old trophy with Francis Hunter at the age of 36, beating four top-15 opponents to claim the title. He now has 72 grass court match wins, third among active ATP players behind Roger Federer and Andy Murray.
The Spaniard was delighted to triumph at a tournament he watched and dreamt of winning as a child, and in front of his parents, who flew into London on Sunday morning to sit courtside for the final – and what a match his parents saw.
Both Lopez and No.4 seed Cilic came into the final brimming with confidence – Cilic’s game flowing brilliantly behind a first serve that had coughed up just 10 points en route to the final and had seen him broken just once in four matches, Lopez riding the wave of his run to the Stuttgart final to beat No.2 seed Stan Wawrinka in the opening round and fight back from match point down against Tomas Berdych in the quarter-finals.
The Spaniard had also been broken just once en route to the final, but was the first to blink at the end of the first set, coughing up a service game to love in game 10 to hand Cilic the opener. The Croatian looked far fresher during the second set, but Lopez redoubled his efforts to stay with the 2012 champion before running away with the tiebreak, setting up the intense final act to a dramatic week at Queen’s.
After both men stood firm on serve through the decider, Cilic was first to reach championship point in the tiebreak, only for Lopez to lunge to his left and volley the Croatian’s running pass into the open court. When Lopez got to match point, he could only watch as Cilic kept himself in the match with an ace and a volley winner, but the Croatian ultimately gave up the match by hooking a forehand into the tramlines.
“It was a really high level of tennis and it was a pleasure to play,” said Cilic, who will return to his career-high ranking of No.6 on Monday. “It was an amazing match. I had chances in the second set to get a break up but Feliciano played very well. He always plays well on grass and he deserves the title. I played great tennis this week and I enjoyed every single day. It was great preparation for Wimbledon.”
For Lopez, the title completes a 9-1 run on grass ahead of The Championships, a fine recovery after a tough start to 2017 hit by injury and a search for his best form. “This week I think overall – considering every match, every situation that I handled – was probably the best week of my career,” he said
“Tennis is a unique sport where anything can happen – from one day to the other, it can be so different. It is true that I'm going into Wimbledon with a lot of confidence; probably this is the Wimbledon that I feel more confident going into it. But next week, the draw has to be done. I hope I can still play in the same way, no?
“Tennis is about sensations, feelings. Winning here, it's the best preparation I can have. But you can have a very tough draw from the very beginning.
"There are so many unseeded players that they are so good, so I have to be aware of that. But it is obvious that going into Wimbledon after winning Queen's is the best for me.”
Cilic began the day with the chance to match Mark Philippoussis’s 1997 Queen’s Club double, but fell to defeat in the semi-finals of the doubles alongsi Marcin Matkowski shortly after the singles final. No.3 seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares advanced, returning shortly after to claim the title against French duo Julien Benneteau and Edouard Roger-Vasselin.
