For a place in the final, Cilic (33) will face the Norwegian Casper Ruud (8th) or the young Dane Holger Rune, 40th in the world at 19, opposed in the evening.
"The fifth set was an incredible battle, reacted Cilic. Andrey (Rublev) played so well... Today is my day, but he was unlucky."
Cilic, winner of the 2014 US Open, thus becomes the fifth active player to have reached the last four in the four Grand Slam tournaments, along with Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.
He is the first Croatian player to achieve such a performance.
After crushing the world No.2 Daniil Medvedev in the previous round, the tall Croatian (1.98m) hit 88 winning shots, including 33 aces (for 71 unforced errors), against Rublev, to win at the end of the very first super tie-break (in ten points) disputed on the Central of Roland-Garros, after 4h10 min of match.
He had obtained a first match point a few minutes earlier, 5 games to 4 on the service of the Russian player.
"I'm mostly emotionally tired, admitted the 30-year-old Croatian. When you play for so long, there are always ups and downs."
Cilic will play the sixth major semi-final of his career on Friday (3 wins, 2 losses).
The first for almost four and a half years (Australian Open 2018, beaten in the final by Federer).
The other semi-final will pit Friday Rafael Nadal, thirteen times crowned on Parisian clay and Novak Djokovic's scorer in a memorable clash completed overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, to world No.3 Alexander Zverev.
© 2022 AFP