On Friday, Jack Sock came back from 2-sets down to score one of the biggest wins of his career – defeating World #12 and Grand Slam Champion Marin Cilic. John Isner followed it up with a straight sets victory over Borna Coric.

Then on Saturday, Bob and Mike – Team USA stalwarts, automatic points for over a decade – were outplayed by a well-prepared pair of Croatians up-against the ropes. Dodig and Cilic did their homework. Yes, both were consistently overpowering with their groundstrokes, but their tactics were sublime. From what I understand – based on Marin and Ivan’s post-match interview with Mark Knowles – after a devastating day-1, the team got busy. They watched several of Bob and Mike’s recent matches to hunt down chinks in the armour. And they found some.

One thing they discovered? Mike’s brilliance at the cross-court return. So…whenever Ivan was serving to Mike, Marin would set-up in the service-box across from Bob (traditionally, one sets-up in the service box opposite the service-receiver). The move completely took-away Mike’s money-shot. That said, it also opened-up an entire HALF of the court for Mike to deliver winning returns up the line…but he couldn’t do it. Chink exploited. The Croatians scored the victory in a quick four sets.

On reverse singles Sunday, Isner fell to Cilic for the sixth time in six meetings. After losing the first 11-9 in the tiebreak, John’s unforced errors moved sets 2 and 3 along quickly. Marin won it in three.

The question was, who would rise to the pressure? Jack Sock, who just earned the biggest win of his career over Marin Cilic on Friday, or Borna Coric – hungry to keep his country’s momentum alive? Coric rose to the occasion. He came out firing, broke Sock right out of the gate, then held the rest of the way to take the first set. While Jack woke the stadium with a break mid-way through the second, he still struggled on serve – often falling-behind early, then battling through deuce to earn the hold. Jack would take set-2, but suffer four more breaks, ultimately losing to Coric in the fourth-set.

It was Borna’s second consecutive deciding-rubber win for Croatia. He clinched their First-Round Tie over Belgium in the 5th and deciding rubber back in March.