Marin Cilic Reaches Final of Australian Open

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MELBOURNE, Australia — Marin Cilic appeared hesitant as he stepped to the baseline to begin his Australian Open semifinal match on Thursday. Before hitting the first serve of the match, he bounced the ball more than two dozen times.

Cilic’s fidgeting presaged a poor start. He quickly fell behind after he finally put the ball into play, with his opponent, Kyle Edmund, winning three of the first four points to earn two immediate break opportunities.

But after the initial scare, the sixth-seeded Cilic found his groove. He hammered three consecutive service winners and never looked back, beating Edmund 6-2, 7-6(4), 6-2 in two hours 18 minutes.

Edmund, of Britain, failed to generate any further break point opportunities in the match, while Cilic broke serve four times.

Cilic, who is 6-foot-6, dominated with his first serve, winning 90 percent of those points on his way to becoming the first Croatian, man or woman, to reach an Australian Open singles final. It will be the third major final for Cilic, who won his lone Grand Slam title at the United States Open in 2014.

His opponent on Sunday will be either second-seeded Roger Federer or the unseeded Hyeon Chung, who were scheduled to play Friday evening in the other semifinal.

With his run in Melbourne, Cilic will reach a new career-high of No. 3 when the ATP rankings come out on Monday.

The 49th-ranked Edmund, like the 58th-ranked Chung, was unseeded in the draw. Though his path opened up somewhat when eighth-seeded Jack Sock lost in the first round, Edmund’s route to the semifinals was more difficult: He took out several more-experienced foes en route to the semifinal, including last year’s United States Open runner-up, Kevin Anderson, in the first round and third-seeded Grigor Dimitrov in the quarterfinals.

He appeared to struggle occasionally with his movement in the match, and he took an off-court medical timeout for several minutes after the first set. In his on-court interview, Cilic said that he had first noticed that Edmund’s movement was limited midway through the third set, as his opponent let some shots go past him.

“I was seeing that with his movement he was a little bit restricted, so I just tried to move the ball around,” Cilic said. “Obviously that second break was extremely crucial.”

Cilic, who also benefited from an opponent’s maladies earlier in the tournament, when top-seeded Rafael Nadal retired in the fifth set of their quarterfinal match on Tuesday, had no such struggles.

“I feel really good,” he said. “Today was just a little bit different intensity than in the match with Rafa. In that match, I lifted my game a lot, and the energy was really good on the court. I think, over all, I’m feeling really good, thanks to my fitness coach, thanks to my guys. They are making me work hard.”

That good health should give Cilic a much better chance of winning than in his previous major final. Bothered by a deep blister in his foot during last year’s Wimbledon final, Cilic fell meekly to Federer, 6-3, 6-1, 6-4, in one hour 41 minutes, at one point weeping into his towel in frustration.