2011
At the 2011 Australian Open, Dodig played Ivo Karlović in the 1st round and prevailed in a tough five set match. He was then drawn to play 3rd seed and eventual champion Novak Djokovic in the second round. Although he lost in four sets, he was the only player to win a set against Djokovic in the whole tournament.
He followed this up with a surprise first tournament win in front of his home crowd at the 2011 PBZ Zagreb Indoors beating last year's finalist Michael Berrer.
He then made a second round appearance at the 2011 Regions Morgan Keegan Championships, losing to the comeback kid Juan Martín del Potro. Dodig then reached the quarterfinals at the 2011 Delray Beach International Tennis Championships after beating Kunitsyn and Sela, before losing to Janko Tipsarević
First round action in the Davis Cup, a showdown between Croatia vs Germany, saw Dodig up against Kohlschreiber, but he succumbed to the German in five sets. The loss proved costly as Germany went on to prevail 3–2 in the tie to move on to the quarterfinals.
At the 2011 Sony Ericsson Open he beat Andrey Golubev in the first round. However, he lost to World No.4 Robin Söderling despite being up 4–2 in the third set.
At the 2011 Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters, he bowed out to World No.29 Tommy Robredo in the first round.
Dodig then found some good form heading into the 2011 Barcelona Open Banco Sabadell tournament. In the opening round he beat Vincent Millot before beating No.3 seed and last year's finalist Robin Söderling. He then went on to claim hard fought scalps over fast-rising Canadian Milos Raonic and home favourite Feliciano López to reach the semifinals of a clay-court tournament for the first time in his career. However in the semifinals, he was inevitably stopped by five-time champion and eventual champion for the 6th time, World No.1 Rafael Nadal who is still yet to lose a match on Barcelona soil. Despite breaking twice as he broke once in each set to hang on with Nadal, Dodig eventually fell after giving a decent fight, which added to the Spaniard's current winning streak on clay.
In the second round of the Rogers Cup, Dodig stunned world no. 2 Rafael Nadal, 1–6, 7–6, 7–6 after recovering from a 1–6, 1–3 deficit before losing to Janko Tipsarević in the third round.
On 30 August 2011, in the US Open first round Dodig lost to Nikolay Davydenko in a closely fought five sets match.
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