Borna Coric pulled off an incredible return from injury on Sunday as he won his first ATP Masters 1000 title after taking down Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6(0), 6-2 in the Western & Southern Open final. The Croatian was competing in his first tour-level final since 2020 and overcame Rafael Nadal en route to his second Masters 1000 final.
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Coric demonstrated immense courage against the Greek and came back from 1-4 in the first set, before he bombarded through the fourth seeded in the second set to triumph after one hour and 57 minutes in Cincinnati. After the match, Coric got extremely emotional as he capped off a magical run in Cincinnati and celebrated his win with a unique gesture, the video of which is now doing rounds on social media.
Watch the video here:
The storybook ending 🪄 #CincyTennis | @borna_coric pic.twitter.com/ahii51OABG
— Western & Southern Open (@CincyTennis) August 21, 2022
Reacting to his victory, Coric opened up about how his hard work finally led to fruition. "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."
He then addressed how to build his ‘Giant Killer’ moniker as he defeated tournament favourites like Nadal and Tsitsipas. “I knew I needed to stay calm. I needed to do my recovery and to stay fresh, basically, because that's most important. And I think that's what I did,” Coric said.
“But I think I kind of learned that the hard way, because I was doing those mistakes when I was younger where I would beat some good players, and then I would just go in the holiday mode.”