Marin Cilic, who won his maiden grand slam trophy at the US Open last year, will continue his bid to defend his title against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga for a semifinal berth. It will be the sixth time on tour that the ninth-seeded Croat will battle the 18th-ranked Frenchman.

Cilic has already played 15 sets in the grand slam tournament, dropping three sets overall against unseeded Mikhail Kukushkin (two sets in the third round) and Jeremy Chardy (one set in the fourth round). He fired 59 aces and 138 winners in his previous matches with 104 unforced errors.

The reigning US Open champion will try to put a stop to Tsonga, who is bidding to reach his semifinal at Flushing Meadows for the first time. Tsonga, a former top-five player and 2008 Australian Open runner-up, beat compatriot Benoit Paire, who upset last year’s runner up Kei Nishikori in the opening round, with straight sets victory 6-4 6-3 6-4 to book a quarterfinal clash with Cilic. It will be the first time that Tsonga will play a seeded player in the tournament.

Cilic owns a 4-1 head-to-head series advantage over Tsonga, who lost in their last three matches. Their most recent meeting took place in the clay courts of Monte Carlo where Cilic won 6-3 7-6(5). The last time that Tsonga had triumphed against the Croat was in 2011 when he beat him in the hard courts of the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati 6-3 6-4.

“He’s a good player,” Tsonga said of Cilic, reported Yahoo Sports. “He beat me a few times in the past on big matches.

Tsonga regards the quarterfinal clash with Cilic as a tough battle. He said that he will have to be prepared to take on the Croat in his quest to win his first grand slam trophy. The US Open is the only grand slam tournament that Tsonga has never made it to the last four. The right-handed Frenchman has made it to the semifinal of the Australian Open (2008 and 2010), Roland Garros (2013 and 2015), and Wimbledon (2011 and 2012).

Reaching the quarterfinal is a relative success for Cilic and Tsonga this season. Cilic didn’t start his 2015 season until the BNP Paribas at Indian Wells. The Croat has struggled with a shoulder injury since winning the US Open last year. Tsonga, on the other hand, recently recovered from an arm injury. The Frenchman started his 2015 campaign in Miami.

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