Even if Marin Cilic and Roger Federer are fierce rivals on court, they still have huge respect for each other.

There has been a lot of speculation that the Australian Open was helping a lot the Swiss Maestro during the tournament in order to attract more and more fans. Roger played only once during the day, and that was in a match that was expected to be just one-way traffic for the world no.2 (it was against Marton Fucsovics).

Jim Courier embarrassed Federer on court after he asked why he was always scheduled during the evening and Roger admitted that he had some influence.

Federer has also disagreed with Djokovic about the Australian Open handling of the hot conditions.

Why playing indoor?

Many wondered why the final was played with a closed roof with a temperature of “only” 37C. The organization said that it was because of the humidity, but many sustained that it was to help Federer that prefers playing indoor and he also practiced indoor before the match while Cilic practiced outdoor.

From Cilic

During a recent interview, Marin excluded that the organization decided to play indoor in order to help Roger to say “I had never played indoors there before. Roger did several times. I don’t think however there was favoritism towards him on the tournament’s part.”

Then he added “I have to say that decision, could it have been different? I guess so.It was just a little bit difficult to adjust, especially the beginning of the match. With the roof closed, it was way, way cooler than I expected.

That was very, very difficult, especially for the final to be in that kind of a situation.”

Eventually, Roger won that final 6-2 6-7⁵ 6-3 3-6 6-1 after getting an important 4-0 lead in the first set with Cilic entirely out of tune. Later, everything became complicated and Roger had indeed to find all his mental and physical energy to win a fantastic match.

Roger hasn’t won 20 slam because he was helped. He earned that!