Croatia’s Marin Cilic has qualified for the semi-final of the French Open 2022 after beating Russia’s Andrey Rublev in a thrilling five-setter at the Phillippe-Chatrier on Wednesday.

Being the higher-ranked player of the two, Rublev started the match by winning the first set. But Cilic made a stupendous comeback and won the second and third sets. Rublev, somehow, got a foothold back in the contest after winning the fourth set.

In the fifth and final set, both Cilic and Rubley threw punches at each other and it went into a tie-breaker. From there on, Rublev seemed to have lost a lot of steam and Cilic kept churning one point after the other.

Cilic was excellent when it came to smashing winners as he pulled as many as 88 of them compared to his opponent’s 35. Cilic also churned out 33 aces to keep Rublev at bay and on his toes.