Ex-Wimbledon finalist Marin Cilic out of The Championships

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2017 Wimbledon finalist Marin Cilic won't be competing at The All England Club this year as the Croatian seemingly suffered a setback in his recovery from knee surgery. Between 2007 and 2021, Cilic made 14 consecutive Wimbledon appearance - note, Wimbledon was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Last year, Cilic had to withdraw late from Wimbledon after testing positive for COVID-19. This year, an injury is keeping Cilic out of Wimbledon. In January, Cilic surgically addressed his knee injury.

Wimbledon update:
OUT: Cilic
IN: Koepfer
Next: Gojo — Entry List Updates (@EntryLists) June 14, 2023

Cilic's comeback plan goes wrong

Former world No 3 Cilic was scheduled to make his comeback in the opening week of the grass season in 's-Hertogenbosch.

But over the weekend, Cilic announced he would not be able to compete this week in 's-Hertogenbosch. "Hey guys! Quick update: Even though my team and I made the difficult decision to skip @libemaopen next week, I am very close to a return to competitive tennis and eager to play tournaments.

My knee has been responding well to a heavy load of training, but we assessed that some extra time will give me better preparation and assurance. The process is long but I am patient in order to be 100% ready," Cilic tweeted on Saturday.

Cilic started his 2023 season in Pune but his knee wasn't in good condition and the Croatian realized the best thing to do was to undergo a surgery. "Few challenging weeks to start 2023. After consulting with various specialists, I made the difficult decision to undergo knee surgery as it seemed the best option for a long term fix to the injury.

Thankfully, the procedure went as well as we could have hoped," Cilic announced on Twitter on January 20th. Now that Cilic is out of the entire grass season, his next comeback target could be Umag. In May, the Umag organizers announced that Cilic signed up to play in their tournament that starts on June 24th.