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Fan favourites American duo Mike Bryan and Jack Sock comfortably beat top-seeded Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic 6-4, 7-6 to take a commanding 2-0 lead in the Knowles / Nestor Group at the 2018 Nitto ATP Finals. The 5th seeded pair 80% of service points to take the match in a little over an hour and 20 minutes.
The path to the semi-finals for the fifth-seeded American pair looks easy and it will be confirmed if Lukasz Kublot and Marcelo Melo beat Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut later today. The fifth seeds will also advance to the last four if Herbert and Mahut defeat Kubot and Melo in three sets.
Bryan and Sock are in resurgent form just like Novak Djokovic. Just like Djokovic whose domination began from Wimbledon earlier this year, Bryan/Sock have also been in terrific form since winning Wimbledon. Participating in just their eighth tournament as a team, Bryan and Sock improved to 18-5.
The first set started off with both teams holding their respective service games on 4 consecutive occasions. The tipping point of the first set came from Marach's forehand unforced error with the Americans having a break point. After seizing the lead, Mike Bryan served it out perfectly to take the first set.
The second set saw a break point opportunity for the Americans in the 3rd game which they seized to break for the second time in the match. At 5-4, what seemed like a routine service game by Mike Bryan turned into a mess with consecutive errors at the net from Sock giving their opponents a reprieve. In the 2nd set tiebreak, things were tight at 4-4 until a couple of costly errors from Pavic turned the tide in the favour of the 5th seeded pair as they took the tiebreak 7-4.
The Austrian - Croatian duo despite losing in straight sets are still in contention to make the semis after having won their first match against the French duo of Herbert and Mahut. Marach and Pavic have won 4 titles on Tour this year and have sealed the year-end Number 1 ranking.
