Marinko Matosevic has produced one of the biggest wins of his career, upsetting Queen’s Club specialist Marin Cilic in the first round in London.

The Australian scored a clinical 6-4 6-4 win over the Croatian ninth seed, a finalist at the prestigious grass court event for the past two years and the 2012 champion.

The win on Tuesday ensured Matosevic joined fellow Australians Lleyton Hewitt, Bernard Tomic and James Duckworth in the second round on Wednesday.

There he will face either compatriot Matt Ebden or Slovakian Lukas Lacko.

World No.60 Matosevic finally broke his grand slam duck at last month’s French Open, winning a first-round match at a major in his 13th attempt.

Despite losing to Andy Murray in his next match, he said the drought-breaking victory had given him a new sense of freedom on the court.

Matosevic made it to the final of a challenger event on grass in Nottingham last week and he carried that good form into Tuesday’s match, played on the centre court at Queen’s Club.

Serving well and limiting his errors, Matosevic started strongly and broke to go 3-2 up in the first set.

He saved a break point to hold in the next game and his serve was never really threatened as he went a set up after 37 minutes.

The second set was much the same story, with Matosevic flawless on serve and securing victory inside 77 minutes.

The performance ranks up there with Matosevic’s previous biggest win, over Milos Raonic in Washington last year.

It was also a particularly sweet one, given two of his 12 grand slam first-round defeats came at the hands of Cilic.

The Croatian was ranked ninth in the world in 2010 but has dropped to No.26 after he was suspended for fourth months last year following a positive test for the banned substance nikethamide.