Less than two months ago, Marin Cilic won the US Open. He is the most recent Grand Slam champion in tennis. He is also on a two-match losing streak right now. Time to panic?

Of course not.

Tennis has been spoiled for over a decade now by the likes of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. It has been mentioned before, but since 2006 Federer, Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray have had an unprecedented (and unbelievable, when you think about it) stranglehold on the biggest events.

We live in a world when Guillermo Canas beating Federer two tournaments in a row in 2007 was a sign of the apocalypse. We live in a world that expects nothing but wins from our champions, no matter what. We live in a world where an early-round loss has no acceptable excuse, no matter what the actual excuse is.

It may be time for us to stop living in that world. Stanislas Wawrinka and Marin Cilic, great champions that they are, will never achieve a “Big Four”-like dominance, They do not quite have the consistency or the overwhelming talent that is needed to never get upset. What made the Big Four what they are wasn't just that they always won. It was that they never lost early. Each of the Big Four had their share of quarterfinal losses to the likes of Tomas Berdych, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, David Ferrer, and others. But it was reaching the late rounds in every single Masters 1000 or major that made them so dominant.

Wawrinka and Cilic, though, are the type to have an imperfect day. It will be rare that they suffer a poor loss in the early rounds of a tournament, but those second-round losses will be there. We need to expect it.

Moreover, neither of Cilic's early-round losses were poor losses. There is no shame whatsoever in losing to Andy Murray at Beijing. If Cilic had been at his top US Open level, that match would have been closer, but Murray would have been a challenge on the best of days. Similarly, there is no shame in losing a third-set tiebreak to Ivo Karlovic at Shanghai. It is a tough draw that can bite anyone when Karlovic is playing well. This loss might hurt Cilic a little in the Race to London, but he is still pretty safe. It would take a lot of parity behind him (and losses by those in front of him) to keep him out.

In short, Cilic is still who we always thought he was. He is an incredibly talented player who is not quite consistent enough to be elite but can challenge for majors if he puts it all together for two full weeks. The US Open shouldn't have changed that opinion of him. And his last two losses shouldn't either.