AO Day 8 (4R): Djokovic drops set against Hewitt but wins and will play Ferrer in quarterfinals

Lleyton Hewitt is a bit old school.  He said he modeled his game not after the great Aussies which were in a dry spell in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but after Mats Wilander.  One of his famous moves, where he bends his wrists and stares at the tips of his fingers is a Mats Wilander move he imitated.  Hewitt’s game was an improvement over Wilander or Chang.  He moved pretty well and always hit the ball plenty deep.  He had a ferocious intensity and will to win.

This style was more than enough to confound young Roger Federer and even handily win over Pete Sampras in the 2001 US Open, which,, interestingly enough, concluded on September 9, 2011 (and Hewitt hung around until September 10, before heading out to Australia).  The early 2000 was an era where Sampras was getting a bit past his prime.  He would continue to go deep in Slams (he reached the US Open finals in 2000, 2001, and 2002 winning in 2002), but generally didn’t care about other ATP events since his body wasn’t rugged enough to deal with the daily pounding.

At the time, he, Marat Safin, Roger Federer, David Nalbandian, Juan Carlos Ferrero, and Andy Roddick must have thought they were the inheritors to the tennis great mantle.  Little did they know several things would happen.

First was the complete reinvention of Roger Federer.  Roger Federer only met Pete Sampras once in official tournament play.  They met in the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2001.  Federer came out victorious that day playing a style that was still viable in those days: serve and volley.  Federer struggled against the new breed of baseliners, Lleyton Hewitt and David Nalbandian, who were fast, hit deep, and just a bit harder than their predecessors.  They didn’t whip winners a la Agassi which is one reason Agassi continued to be productive until the mid 2000s.

Roger Federer worked hard on his ground game.  He wanted to be just as steady and quick as his opponents, but he wanted a weapon.  He wanted to be able to close out points.  Hewitt and Nalbandian relied as much on opponent error as anything.  They weren’t trying to beat you by hitting winners, at least, not usually.  Federer developed patterns of play that allowed him to take first strike on inside out and inside in forehands, and made the game of tennis resemble ping pong on steroids.

Then, came the new players.  First Rafael Nadal around 2005, then Djokovic in 2007, and Murray in 2008 (though he was plenty visible by 2006), and del Potro also in 2008.  This middle 2000 era brought a bunch of players that could work the angles of the court.  When Nadal burst on the scene, he put such wicked spin on the ball, and dropped angles that had not been seen before that players struggled to deal with his game.  Only a certain temerity about attacking kept Nadal’s arsenal under wraps and made him somewhat playable.  But these power players hit that much harder and created that much more angle.

Meanwhile, players like Nalbandian and Hewitt, still pretty successful by around 2004, were finding it tougher and tougher to play these players.  Only Andy Roddick with his huge serve kept his ranking high in the top ten.  And Nalbandian and Hewitt both suffered injuries.  Though both remained resolute in coming back, it was very difficult for them to compete only 5 years after they were at the top of the game.

And so that was the scenario Hewitt found himself.  He had already beat a nemesis in Andy Roddick mostly because Roddick hurt himself, and then beat up-and-coming Milos Raonic, mostly because he managed to return the serve somewhat well, and because Raonic still lacks the steadiness off the ground that he needs to handle Hewitt.

But against Novak Djokovic?  Oh sure, Djokovic was vulnerable after the US Open.  Despite weeks of recovery, he didn’t seem to be at his best and there was some worry that maybe Novak’s worries were not behind him.  He only opted to play the Abu Dhabi event.  It was encourarging when he demolished Federer and Ferrer, but it was an exhibition, after all.  Even after claims that he was fine, ready to defend his title, it wasn’t a sure thing until the tournament started and he quickly took care of his first three opponents, barely dropping games.  Admittedly, they weren’t exactly great opponents so Hewitt might show the form Djokovic was in despite Hewitt having been injured in 2011, and still not 100%.

In the first two sets, especially the first set, Djokovic showed his imperious form.  Playing Djokovic is like playing the classic video game, Breakout.  It’s a wall that keeps getting the ball back.  Hewitt lacks the power that other players have.  Even David Ferrer, a decided counterpuncher, is more aggressive than Hewitt and is just as quick and steady.  The little Spanish terminator hits a tougher ball than Hewitt.  Hewitt’s main strength is his fight and his deep shots.  He doesn’t even have a big enough serve to rely for free points.

Unable to withstand the barrage of Djokovic’s hard struck, precise balls, Hewitt was made to look like a bad practice as Djokovic calmly chased down balls and placed them at will.  The second set was better, but as Hewitt was trying to hold serve to keep the set at one break down and reach 4-5, he got into a long protracted game where he had deuce several times, but ultimately got broken again and lost the set 6-3 instead.

The third set looked like more of the same.  Djokovic got out to a 3-0 lead, and it looked over for the Aussie.  Folks began to leave the court as it was already pretty late.  But somehow Hewitt kept getting to shots, and Djokovic, all of a sudden, started to his shots long and into the net.  Hewitt takes three games in a row before Djokovic manages to win another game.  Then Hewitt held again to 4-all and broke again in a very long game and held his own serve to take the set.  Djokovic has lost the first set in the tournament.

Now everyone knows if Djokovic had been playing the game he had in the first two sets, it would have been over, but that lapse was enough for Hewitt’s scrambling to pay off.  Did Djokovic become Mr. Nice Guy so he wouldn’t humiliate Hewitt in front of his own crowd?  One wonders.

The fourth set was close at the start.  The two hold serve until 3-2 when Djokovic gets the break to 4-2, then holds to 5-2.  The two hold serve one more time, and Djokovic has won the match.

Djokovic will face the David Ferrer in the quarterfinals.  Gasquet had an impressive run through the first three rounds.  The Frenchman was perhaps more famous than Venus Williams who found herself in tennis magazines at the age of 12.  This wasn’t far from the experience that Gasquet had.  He was the next French saviour.  He once said that he played tennis the French way.  With style and power.  He had prodigious talent but maybe not prodigious work ethic.  It didn’t help that Gasquet liked playing way behind the baseline looping his shots on both sides and making it easier for opponents to stay even with him.  Gasquet’s backhand was once considered the best one-hander in the game.  And while he’s capable of magic from that side, it doesn’t hold up under steady attack.

Some prognosticators thought Gasquet had a chance against Ferrer.  He had demolished ninth-ranked Janko Tipsarevic.  However, some also felt Tipsarevic’s appearance in the top ten is mostly smoke and mirrors, a product of nice steady play and two tournament wins, but not from big victories over the biggest players.  In any case, Tipsarevic is no David Ferrer.  Ferrer is a bulldog of a player.  He has just enough game to keep things modestly interesting when he plays the top four, but alas not enough game to beat them unless they are a bit off their game, which he did against Murray and Djokovic in the year-end championship last year.

Ferrer has a 5-1 record over Gasquet and all of the wins weren’t close.  They were of the 6-3, 6-3 variety.  But surely the swashbuckling Gaul could muster a challenge to the Spaniard?  Yes?  No.

Ferrer won handily, 64 64 61.  Gasquet tried to get into backhand-to-backhand exchanges, but Ferrer was steadier on his weaker wing.  Gasquet didn’t have enough magic to push Ferrer away from his usual game, and perhaps lacked the stamina too.  By the third set, with the end far in sight, Gasquet realized it was too much to keep staying even with Ferrer, or more properly, just a little behind, and lost that set handily.

Now the quarterfinals are set for the top-half of the draw.  Murray will play Nishikori.  Given Nishikori’s lengthy matches in the past three rounds, he’ll be struggling with recovering enough to play Murray.  Murray meanwhile had a rest against Kukushkin who found himself in the same boat as Nishikori–having played a pair of five setter to reach this point.  The other quarterfinals pits Novak Djokovic against David Ferrer in the first real test of Djokovic’s return.  Ferrer beat Djokovic the last time the two met, namely, back in London.  To be fair, Djokovic wasn’t exactly 100% back then.  And, oh yes, they did meet in Abu Dhabi, and Djokovic easily beat Ferrer there.

Djokovic is favored to win.  Ferrer will have to hope for mental lapse if he expects to win, but at least he’s had some victories over the Serb.

Tonight, Federer takes on del Potro, and Nadal takes on Berdych.  Federer and Nadal are expected to win.  Federer probably has the tougher deal.  del Potro is starting to regain some of his form.  He may not be nearly as imposing as he was three years ago, but he is very steady.  In 2011, del Potro worked on his first serve first, then getting himself steady off the ground, then adding more power off the ground.  For a big man, he’s a lot steadier from the back than Querrey or Harrison of anyone of his height, save perhaps an in-form Cilic.  And he’s always had his huge forehand.

Federer is likely to push del Potro to run as much as possible.  del Potro hides his height pretty well mostly because people are afraid to hit to his forehand.  del Potro is also not quite ready to beat top players, but he has to start at some point.  The big question is whether it’s now or not.

Nadal is favored against Berdych.  If nothing else, he’ll have fan support.  Aussies really believe in sportsmanship, perhaps more than any other country, and the mercilessly booed when Berdych refused to shake Nicolas Almagro’s hand.  Almagro isn’t exactly a likable guy either, but it didn’t matter for most who only saw a 3 minute clip and made up their minds.  Not that Nadal particularly needs it.  Berdych beat Nadal around 5 years ago just as Nadal was getting good, and beat him on hard courts.  Since then, Nadal has taken the last 9 matches, on all surfaces, hard, grass, and clay.

If Berdych has a weakness, it’s his movement.  He’s a big guy.  He moves reasonably well mostly because he hides his deficiency behind his power.  By hitting so hard, he takes advantage of when he’s in a bad situation.  Berdych has pretty good speed if he heads in one direction, but struggles if he has to switch directions.  Nadal is going to use his high looper to counter Berdych’s power shots and force him to hit another shot and hopefully elicit an error, and use his angles to move Berdych around.  His goal is to make Berdych hit one more shot than he wants to.

Berdych, meanwhile, will want to serve big and attack Nadal’s second serve like he did Almagro’s second serve.  In a way, Almagro played a bit dumb by aiing to Berdych’s superior forehand so often instead of playing the backhand.  Berdych takes risks.  The hard courts, however, is his best surface, so if Berdych is likely to pull the upset, he needs a slightly out-of-form Nadal, plus he needs to hit his serves well (which he’s capable of) and he needs to attack the Nadal second serve.  All of this is within his capabilities.  The question is whether all that is enough.  He’ll still have to play out of his mind.  The only positive aspect is that he’s playing pretty good right now.  But then he was playing pretty good at the 2010 Wimbledon final and still didn’t make an impression in Nadal’s game.

So it looks very much like a Federer-Nadal semifinal.

AO Day 8 (4R): Nishikori upsets Tsonga in five sets to reach quaterfinals

Prior to this match, I predicted if there was going to be an upset, it would be Nishikori over Tsonga.  That’s because two of the other matches seemed pretty lopsided (Murray over Kukushkin and Djokovic over Hewitt).  Indeed, even Ferrer over Gasquet should be a sure thing based on their past head-to-head, but Gasquet is talented enough that I could see him giving Ferrer some trouble.  The reason?  Nishikori had beaten Tsonga in Shanghai from last year.

Even so, there’s predicting the upset and there’s the upset happening.  In the first set, Tsonga looked like Tsonga and was able to get a double-break lead and win the first set 62.  It seemed like Nishikori wouldn’t be able to hang in.  However, he pointed out a dead spot on the court which caused an interruption of 7-8 minutes to repair the court (basically drilling a hole to deflate the bubble and pat it down).  Surprisingly, after that, Nishikori started playing well.  He was able to attack Tsonga’s backhand and Tsonga seemed unable to control the ball, spraying the ball.  Nishikori took the second set 62.

The third set continued to go Nishikori’s way as Tsonga was starting to spin some of his serves at very slow speeds and sliced a lot of backhands.  Nishikori took that set 61, then went on a bathroom break.  Tsonga was able to show some fight in the fourth set and got a break early on.  Nishikori had chances to break, but could never quite do it.  Both players seemed to laboring under the heat of the Melbourne sun.  Tsonga took the fourth set 63.

Nishikori then got an early break over Tsonga and pretty much didn’t play return games after that, letting Tsonga hold at love while he worried about holding his own serve, which he did.  Nishikori was able to get a few free points on missed returns in his last service game, then hit an ace to get to 40-0.  Tsonga did manage to get a few points back, but Nishikori was able to run a drop volley down, hit it to the open court to win in five sets.  With this, Nishikori should move in to the top twenty.

Nishikori apparently becomes the first Japanese player in 80 years to reach an Australian Open quarterfinals (although one would imagine it was simply called the Australian Championships back then).  He’s the highest ranked Japanese male ever and was being watched by Mama Kimiko Date, the highest ranked Japanese singles player ever (of either sex).  The two are playing mixed doubles, though one wonders if Nishikori will do so or not.  The good news is mixed doubles is played no-ad with a third set champions tiebreak so it limits how much they play.

And that means Murray, whose draw looked pretty dire, has gotten a second reprieve.  Murray was expected to play Gael Monfils, but due to some injury issues with Monfils, he wasn’t playing well in the first two sets of his third round match against Kukushkin.  He started to feel better and began to win games and took sets 3 and 4.  They were even in the fifth set when someone tossed an oversized ball.  Monfils double-fauted and eventually gave his serve away.  Kukushkin survived the five setter and won.

But apparently he had nothing in his match against Murray.  Murray would say that Kukushkin had no legs and wasn’t even running.  Murray stopped hitting big serves and went for spin serves.  Kukushkin did not hold serve in two sets, winning only two games on breaks of Murray’s serve.  Murray said that he would go out and practice some more since he didn’t play a real match.

Murray will play Nishikori next who has played a five setter, a four setter, a five setter in the last three rounds.  Fitness and recovery will be a big issue for Nishikori as it was for Kukushkin and should favor Murray who has had a much easier route to the quarterfinals.

Upcoming is David Ferrer against Richard Gasquet and the evening feature match of Novak Djokovic and Lleyton Hewitt.

AO Day 8 (4R): Top-half fourth-round previews

We’re getting to the business end of the Australian Open fortnight with the top half playing their fourth round matches today.

Let’s take a look at these matches.

Tsonga vs. Nishikori

On paper, this match should be Tsonga’s.  He’s had pretty straight-forward matches while Nishikori has struggled with slow starts.  Alas, this is nothing new to Nishikori who struggled with slow starts in Shanghai last year, yet managed to win.  It’s clearly something that concerns the Nishikori camp, but wins are wins.

Speaking of Shanghai, that tournament is one big reason to believe Nishikori has a more than decent shot against Tsonga.  The two have only met once and that was Shanghai last year where Nishikori won in three close sets.

I favor Tsonga, but Nishikori has to believe he can keep this close and make Tsonga work.

Ferrer vs Gasquet

Most people think Gasquet has a chance to upset Ferrer.  Gasquet has had relatively little trouble reaching this point including a straight set dismissal of world number 9, Janko Tipsarevic.

But here’s the deal.  Ferrer owns Gasquet.  They’ve met 6 times with Ferrer winning 5, and those five wins were lopsided wins.  They haven’t met in two years, but the last two years have seen Ferrer move into the top 5.  Ferrer is such a tough out though that Gasquet will really have to be on top of his game.  Gasquet is a flashy player and he makes great looking shots.  It’s possible Gasquet has moved up a level and will keep things interesting.  He’ll have to because history doesn’t look good for him.  The only positive for Gasquet is Ferrer struggled against a low-ranked Ryan Sweeting before coming back.  It’s possible Ferrer isn’t 100%, but he still manages to win and fights as hard as anyone on tour.

Murray vs. Kukushkin

On paper, this would seem like a blowout.  Kukushkin is ranked 92 in the world.  However, he’s beaten three respectable players to reach this point: Garcia-Lopez, Troicki, and Monfils.  He did need five sets to beat Troicki and Monfils, so conditioning may play a factor and work against him.

The two met three weeks ago in Brisbane where Murray claimed his match against Kukushkin was the closest he came to losing in the tournament.  He also said he wasn’t moving very that match and when he doesn’t move well, he struggles to win.  Given his movement against Llodra, Murray should be feeling good about his movement and that should spell trouble for the Russian-born Kazakh player.

Given a second chance to play Kukushkin, Murray should devise a better strategy to handle him.  Even so, Kukushkin is a bit of an unknown.  He is coached by his wife who, Kukushkin says, got a degree from Moscow University (or at least was trained there) and he claimed his wife would figure out a way for him to play Murray.

This match will be played in the daytime where it’s expected to get very hot.  This may play more into Murray’s hands as he has trained in the heat the past few years.

Still, the odds are strong that Murray wins this.

Djokovic vs. Hewitt

The good news?  It will be hot tomorrow and Djokovic struggles in the heat.  The bad news?  Djokovic and Hewitt are the featured match, so it will be played at night, though there’s still expected to be some sun when the match starts.  Although Hewitt has been number one and fought off a challenge in Milos Raonic, most people feel that he has no chance against the world number one.

They’ve played five times with Djokovic winning four times.  For as few times as they’ve played, four of the head-to-heads have been in Slams.  Hewitt won their first meeting in the US Open in 2006.  Djokovic beat him at Wimbledon twice including in 2010 and at the Australian Open back in 2008.

The good news for Hewitt is he played Djokovic tough back in 2010, their most recent meeting and took one set off of him.  The bad news?  He still didn’t beat him.   If Hewitt plays well, he’s likely to take a set off Djokovic.  Djokovic has been playing pretty solidly so far with no one pushing him too much.  Indeed, he’s steamrolled his first few opponents hardly dropping games.  This should be a good measure of Djokovic’s form who, despite being top seed, isn’t getting as much press as Federer or Tomic, for that matter.  Based on matches played, he’s done the best of the big four.

Likeliest upset

I think the likeliest upset is Nishikori over Tsonga.  I don’t think it will happen, but at least Nishikori has one win over Tsonga, and I think that counts for something. The better player is favored pretty heavily in the four matches above, but Nishikori is likely to give Tsonga a good match.

The least likely upset ought to be Gasquet over Ferrer only because of their head-to-head.  But Gasquet is a high ranked player, and despite getting crushed, he might be able to play better than expected.  If it were based on rankings, clearly the Murray-Kukushkin match would be the least likely.  However, the two played a close match recently.  Murray should have picked up a few ideas on how to play him from that match, and his team is likely to review the matches that Kukushkin has played.

AO Day 7 (4R): Federer schools Tomic in straight sets to reach QF against del Potro

There was a question whether Tomic could play Federer the way he played Dolgopolov or even Querrey and Verdasco.  That is, hit off-pace shots and hope to befuddle Federer.  The thought was perhaps he couldn’t and would have to up the pace.  Tomic felt confident he could take the match to Federer, but he still has weaknesses that hurt him overall.  In particular, Tomic isn’t a fast mover, he tends to guess which way to go on return of serve, and his off-pace shots can leave him vulnerable to hard hits.  And when Tomic is on the run, he can sometimes mishit shots.

In the first set, the two players were trying to feel each other out.  Tomic was initially relying on pushing the ball hoping that Federer would make errors, and Federer was trying to decide how much power he could go for.  The two stayed even until about 4-all when Tomic made a few errors and Federer took the first set 64.

The next two sets were much more clinical.  After Federer started to drive the crosscourt slice backhands down the line for winners, Tomic switched gears and tried to hit flatter.  In these exchanges, Federer showed a great deal of quick movements showing he’s still as agile as ever.  Having said that, Tomic isn’t exactly a standard hitting player, and so his style just happened to match Federer’s rhythm.  If Federer can do something similar against del Potro, then I’ll believe this performance is real.

Meanwhile, Federer managed to pull all sorts of magic against Tomic.  He hit drop shots.  He drove shots down the line for winners.  He hit backhand overheads.  He dealt with huge flat crosscourt forehands.  He looked as sharp as he did when he used to dominate the tour 4-5 years ago.  Tomic was often shaking his head wondering what had happened.  Everyone knows that it was a learning experience for him  Tomic probably expected a lot more from himself and left with a lesson he’ll have to rue over.  He has a different style, and he may have to add more conventional shot making, in particular, good topspin shots instead of hitting so flat.

Final score: 64 62 62.

del Potro also had a fairly easy time.  He had an early break to Kohlschreiber who broke back before del Potro broke again, then cruised to a 64 62 61 win.

Nadal did not have many problems with Feliciano Lopez.  Lopez struggles in long exchanges from the baseline.  In backhand to backhand excehanges, Lopez invariably feels the need to take a big swat at the ball and invariably nets it.  He managed to prevent a blowout in the first set when Nadal had plenty of opportunities to make second break, but hit enough errors that Lopez was able to stay within a break, but not get any closer.  The second set pretty much went the same.  Then, Nadal secured two breaks in the final for a 64 62 62 win.

Nadal’s opponent is Tomas Berdych, who got himself into a brouhaha.  Against Almagro, the two seemed evenly matched.  Both served well, both hit off the ground well.  Almagro took the first set 64.  The two held serve throughout the second set which went to a tiebreak.  Berdych was a bit more aggressive in the second set tiebreak and won it.  He got an early break in the third set, but Almagro got the break back and the second set also went to a tiebreak and pretty much like the second set, Berdych played more aggressively and won the second set tiebreak.  In the fourth set, the players were on serve until late in the fourth set when, at 0-30 down, Berdych got to net, and Almagro hit a passing shot at Berdych.  It hit him on the arm, but he felt Almagro took a cheap shot to the head.

Berdych managed to dig out of the 0-40 hole win the game to a 6-5 lead then the two again went into tiebreak and Berdych again took the lead and won the match 76.

When it came time to shake hands, Berdych refused.  The Aussies love their competition, but they feel at the end of tennis matches, you shake hands no matter what, as a matter of respect.  So they rained down boos which interrupted the post-match interview.  Had it been anywhere else in the world, it probably would have been treated with a shrug, and the audience would simply not have cared.  Not, the Aussies, however.  Berdych said, in a post match interview, that there’s plenty of places to hit without going after someone.  Almagro said that he’s trying to win the point and that’s how it goes.  The ESPN announcers backed Almagro saying hitting a person is fair play, even though you see a lot less of this (Lendl, Murray’s new coach, would often peg McEnroe to intimidate him–but he didn’t care that he was being branded the bad guy, and recently, Murray pegged Llodra in the back, when Llodra, an experienced doubles player, had the good sense to turn around when it looked like he might get hit–doubles players get hit a lot more due to the close proximity of playing).

Tomorrow, Murray takes on surprise fourth-rounder, Mikhail Kukushkin.  They say it’s unusual that Li Na is coached by her husband, but it’s probably more unusual that Kukushkin is coached by his wife.  Davydenko was unofficially coached by his wife when his brother Eduoard was helping his son in tennis, but this may be a first, at least for a top-ranked player.  Djokovic will take on veteran Lleyton Hewitt who is a huge underdog in that match.

Tsonga will take on Nishikori and Gasquet will play Ferrer.

AO Day 6 (3R): Murray dispatches Llodra in straight sets to reach fourth round

And that’s why no one plays serve and volley anymore.

Michael Llodra is perhaps the last of a dying breed.  The serve-and-volleyer.  It isn’t a coincidence that Llodra is just north of 30 years old.  I know, I know, veterans will tell you that everyone’s forgotten how to volley.  You have to be around 30 to remember what it was like to volley on a consistent basis.  Ivo Karlovic, he of the huge serve and forehand, actually volleys pretty well.  He has to.  His movement on the baseline is a liability, so he better know his way around the net.  You can see he has the skills of someone who volleys a fair bit.

But a serve-and-volleyer takes so many risks.  To be successful as a serve-and-volleyer you need to, first and foremost, have a good enough first serve to win a few free points with no returns.  People forget that.  They seem to think that everytime a serve-and-volleyer served, they volleyed.

Well, they didn’t.  They relied on a few missed returns each game.  Without it, the returner gets too many good looks at passing each game.  And that’s really the reason that serve and volley died.  Returners began returning 10 feet behind the baseline.  During the days of Laver and Rosewall, such an idea would be pure folly.

Several reasons, according to the old mindset.  First, you give up a lot of court.  The volleyer has that much more time to get to net.  Second, and this was something the net rushers of the day never considered, you have to hit much harder that far back to make a pass.  The players of the day never imagined that people would hit hard whipping topspin shots that were much harder and, more importantly, much more accurate than the returners of their day that either blunted the ball back or chipped it.  They didn’t imagine people taking good hard swipes and having it dip down.

Topspin also meant that passers could dip the ball sharply into the service boxes.  In the old days, passing shots often landed close to the baseline.  With a flat pass, you can’t dip the ball so violently.  Sure, the strings have a lot to do with that now, but when you can reliably dip the ball, and hit it inside the sidelines time and time and time again, any advantage a serve and volleyer has is negated.

And clearly, Llodra is good enough to play the modern game.  He may not be able to routinely beat Murray or Federer or Nadal or Djokovic, but his hard hitting, hard charging style creates problems for lower ranked players who aren’t used to making passing shots.  One result of the demise of serve and volley is struggling to hit pass after pass after pass.  Your mind has to be sharp to do that.

Murray has always said he liked a target, and so he does.  This match turned out to be a lot of fun with Llodra having to use drop volleys of all sorts to get to Murray, and Murray using his touch to counter Llodra.   There were lobs, drop shots, drop shots off drop shots, tweeners.  It makes you sad that there aren’t more serve and volleyers, even if their chances of winning aren’t so great.  Murray’s contorted look in the picture was a set point where Llodra hit a tweener right into Murray’s body and Murray barely moved out of the way, hit the volley, before falling backwards.

But with Murray getting back so many serves, Llodra was pressured time and again to deal with passing shots.  And in the end, the barrage of shots was too much for the wily Frenchman.

Final score: 64 62 60

Murray’s draw had set up the possibility of meeting the French Davis Cup team in successive rounds.  He had already played Roger-Vasselin, admittedly, not ranked high enough to be on the team, then Llodra.  He could have met Monfils then Tsonga.  But Monfils didn’t make it past the Kazakh player, Mikhail Kukushkin.  Now, as it turns out, Kazakhstan doesn’t exactly have its own players.  Kukushkin is Russian.  What it does have is money, so they’ve cobbled a team of players that were considered not quite ready for Russian prime time to play for the Kazakhstanis.

Anyway, Monfils apparently had some issues with injuries of some sort.  Not bad enough that he had to default, though apparently he was extensively seeing trainers, and not good enough that he could handle Kukushkin easily.  Kukushkin took the first two sets 62, 75 and an upset was brewing.  But Monfils managed to come back and take the next two sets 75, 61 with Kukushkin’s game seemingly falling apart.  Monfils even had a break in the fifth set, but Kukushkin broke to tie it.  Then in a critical game where Monfils was serving, someone tossed a tennis ball onto the court.  In a point that Monfils appeared to be winning, Monfils eventually lost serve and Kukushkin took the fifth set, 64.

As it turns out, Kukushkin’s next opponent is Andy Murray.  The two have only played once, but that was two weeks ago in Brisbane as Murray was struggling to find ways out of his first two rounds.  Murray said he almost lost to Kukushkin, but finally got his game in gear.  Murray will probably be happy to see Kukushkin instead of Monfils (although Murray has an excellent record against the French) and happier still that Kukushkin won in 5 long sets and looked somewhat shaky in victory.   Murray is staring to look sharp, but playing a serve and volleyer can do that.

Kei Nishikori appears to be a slow starter.  He was asked about this back in Shanghai.  He said he prefers to win in straight sets, but was finding himself fighting to win matches in three sets.  Nishikori needed five sets (down two sets to love) to beat local Aussie Matthew Ebden, and found himself a set down against Julien Benneteau, who was a finalist in Sydney just this past week.  Nishikori won two tiebreaks in a row, and had to get breaks in the third set just to do that.   However, he did take the match in four sets.

Up next for Nishikori is Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who has been cruising the past few rounds, admittedly against rather weak opponents.  Tsonga crushed Portugal’s Frederico Gil 62 62 62.

Djokovic also had an easy match against Nicolas Mahut, though word was, Mahut was injured but didn’t want to retire.  The match was 60 61 61.  Up next for Djokkoic is Lleyton Hewitt.  Hewitt had to face the big serving Canadian, Milos Raonic.  Goes to show that Raonic’s game is still rough around the edges and that Hewitt’s never-say-die attitude is good enough for him to win matches.  Hewitt should win a few games off Djokovic, but it’s hard to see him winning.  Still, Hewitt’s been playing better than usual.  Maybe he can win a set.

David Ferrer found himself down double-break against Juan Ignacio Chela.  But then Ferrer turned it on.  Chela is a rugged baseliner that gets lots of shots back.   But Ferrer just does this better.  Ferrer may be known for pressuring players bigger than him, but he’s also got the steadiness to beat players like Chela who grind it out.  Ferrer is often thought of as a counter-puncher, but he’s an aggressive counter-puncher.  He’s no Gilles Simon who pushes the ball around waiting for the error.  Ferrer is a pretty aggressive ball striker.  He’s not going for winners, but he is trying to maneuver the game to his liking.  Even when you pressure him, he is able to get solid shots back.  Chela finally wilted under the withering blows of the feisty Spaniard losing 75 62 61.

Richard Gasquet has been playing pretty well as of late and beat top ten player Janko Tipsarevic handily, 63 63 61.  Up next for the Frenchman is David Ferrer.  Gasquet doesn’t like playing Ferrer.  He’s on the “one” side of a 5-1 head to head and the wins that Ferrer has had have been lopsided.  Gasquet is a flashy player but he needs steadiness.  Still, Tipsarevic is somewhat like Ferrer in playing style, so perhaps Gasquet can keep it interesting.

Tomorrow, Federer takes on Tomic.

AO Day 5 (3R): Tomic squeaks by Dolgopolov in five sets to set up meeting against Federer

It’s often been said that Bernard Tomic plays like no one else.  If comparisons are made to active players, it’s often to Andy Murray who often uses change of pace, but even he plays a bit differently to Tomic, or to Alexandr Dolgopolov.  Well, wouldn’t you know it, the draw happened to put Tomic and Dolgopolov to meet in the third round.

This was no easy task, by any means.  Dolgopolov played in the finals of Brisbane a little over a week ago and had some groin issues.  It wasn’t clear he was completely healed.  When he dropped the first two sets in the first round to a relative unknown, folks speculated that he was perhaps more hurt than expected.  Nonetheless, he managed to dig himself out of that hole and win in 5 sets.  Dolgopolov found himself in yet another five setter against Tobias Kamke in the second round, but again, won that in five sets.

Tomic’s route was not much better.  In the opening round, Tomic had to face a seed–Fernando Verdasco–in one of the hotter days of the Australian Open.  Verdasco used his ability to hit hard and create angles to run Tomic ragged.  Tomic had chances in the second set to take the set, but failed to do so and found himself in a two set hole.  Everyone figured his fitness was still not good enough to handle the big boys, but somehow, he played “possum” and worked his way in the third set with each player holding serve.  He then pounced, got a break, and took the third set.  It was around this time that Verdasco claimed he had a stomach issue that was affecting his own play.  Tomic took the fourth set as well.

At this point, Verdasco realized that he needed to play better if he was going to win, but he had already sacrificed two sets and Tomic was feeling pretty good.  The fifth set was much tighter, but Tomic eventually got the break and took the fifth set and escaped.

The second match was a bit better for Tomic.  Sam Querrey, who was out much of 2011, was looking pretty good.  He wanted to use his serve and his big forehand to dictate points, and took the first set.  However, Tomic had begun to cast his spell.  His mix of slices and spins began to bother Querrey.  Tomic took the next three sets rather comfortably as Querrey struggled to figure out how to his against this guy.

Afterwards, Tomic was asked about his next opponent, Alexandr Dolgopolov.  Tomic exclaimed that he hated playing Dolgopolov and he was sure Dolgopolov hated playing him.  Dolgopolov had beaten him on three occasions.  Twice last year and once the year before.  In both meetings last year, Tomic took a close first set before Dolgopolov easily took the following two sets.

Although the two players play somewhat similar games, they are different.  Tomic is a lot more cat and mouse.  Tomic doesn’t look to dictate with power.  He would prefer hitting soft shot after soft shot and if you decide to get aggressive, he might do the same.  Say, you hit a big forehand to his forehand corner.  He might all of a sudden slap that shot down the line.  Even when opportunities might dictate hitting a big shot, he might opt to slice the forehand.

By contrast, Dolgopolov, who also likes to slice off backhand and forehand, is much quicker than Tomic and prefers to use his power at surprising times.  When other players might be content to hit a standard rally, Dolgopolov whips an angle crosscourt forehand.  He often hits a huge shot when you least expect it.  He also had a challenging serve to return.

The two of them combined lead to some of the strangest points you’ll see played all year especially their numerous chip to chip backhand exchanges.  Most players would find this meaningless and look for ways to get out of such rallies, but both Dolgopolov and Tomic seemed happy going back and forth.  After the initial slice exchange, which always gets an audience laughing nervously wondering who will finally hit something different, the crowd realized that such rallies were going to be commonplace between the two.

Dolgopolov controlled the early going mostly because he was able to use his power and hit to where Tomic wasn’t.  He was also able to sneak to net and finish off points.  Tomic, whose movement isn’t great, struggled to deal with this, but tried to keep to his strategy.  The Ukrainian took the first set 64.  He was up a break in the second set as well, but Tomic was able to break back as his strategy was starting to pay off.  Dolgopolov was starting to net shots.  Tomic’s serve also gave Dolgopolov trouble.   Darren Cahill wondered aloud why Dolgopolov didn’t recognize that Tomic likes serving out wide on both ad and deuce court, and that serve bailed Tomic out of lots of points.

Tomic turns out to have a pretty amazing tiebreak record.  Most players tend to win as many tiebreaks as they lose, even the very best players.  Tomic was aggressive on return, then held his own serve twice, then broke Dologopolov twice, again with aggressive shots he hadn’t used much the entire set, and eventually swept the tiebreak 7 points to love.

In the third set, the two players also swapped breaks and it too headed to a tiebreak, where the first five points went against server with Tomic taking the first point, Dolgopolov taking the next two and Tomic taking the next two.  This seemed like a key set that Tomic had to win because Dolgopolov still had a few more weapons than Tomic.  Taking this set would give Tomic the momentum.  Tomic eventually took this tiebreak as well, 8 points to 6, and we headed to a fourth set.

Despite being down two sets to none, Dolgopolov still looked pretty sharp and was soon up a break of serve.  It wasn’t clear whether Tomic wanted to fight for this set or not.  When Tomic lost another serve playing sloppy tennis, it was all he could do to quickly lose the fourth set and play the fifth.

In the fifth, Tomic played a bit better, and avoided being broken.  The slices and dices were beginning to work as Dolgopolov struggled with errors.  Tomic was able to secure an early break, and then, despite challenges, held to win the match in five sets.

Final score: 46, 76, 76, 26, 63.

The first two matches on Rod Laver Arena featured the second and third seeds.  Rafael Nadal played Lukas Lacko.  Lacko was originally a doubles specialist but has played more singles as of late.  He beat Donald Young in the previous round.  I had hoped that Lacko would have enough off the ground to bother Nadal.  However, Nadal broke Lacko his first service game.  Lacko returned the favor, and it seemed the match might be interesting.

It wasn’t.  Lacko, who played Nadal last year and lost 2, 2, and 2, did only marginally better.  Although Lacko has the ability to hit hard and hit good spots, these matches invariably start with the weaker player looking pretty good in the first set, but the better player winning the rallies nonetheless.  Then, as the match goes on, the shots that were landing in during the first set start landing wide or deep.  Lacko manage to keep the second set relatively close at 64, but lost the third set at 62.  Nadal is looking pretty solid and will face countryman Feliciano Lopez next.

Lopez played marathon man, John Isner, and this too was a marathon.  Unlike Nalbandian, Lopez has a pretty good first serve and it won him quite a few points.  Isner didn’t seem fully recovered, but he did as he usually does.  He fights.  Lopez took the first set 63, and Isner took the second set 76.  Lopez took the third set 64 and Isner took the fourth set 76.  However, Isner went away quickly in the fifth set and lost 61.  It’s been a challenge for Isner to back up a big five setter and play well the next round.  Although Isner lost, at least he pushed it to five sets.

Tomas Berdych has been flying under the radar.  He’s been playing good tennis, but no one has seemed to notice.  In the third round, he faced tall Kevin Anderson who may be the best moving of the men at that height.  That’s a pretty small category that includes Karlovic, Isner, and himself.  He is far more mobile than either Isner or Karlovic, and might be at the level of Querrey or so.  Berdych and Anderson play similarly but Berdych seems just a touch better.  The two went to tiebreak the first two sets and Berdych won both.  Commentators felt Anderson would fold pretty quickly and he did in a 61 final set as Berdych delivered more confident shots.

Berdych will play Nicolas Almagro.  Almagro played an erratic Stan Wawrinka.  The Spaniard is not known as a hard court player, but Wawrinka also prefers the clay (though he did win Chennai on hard courts).  Almagro won in straight sets with the Swiss number 2 not playing all that well.

The Swiss number 1, Roger Federer, was pitted against Ivo Karlovic.  Federer claims to like these matches.  Invariably Karlovic creates a lot of anxiety for most players.  He has a huge serve and so mostly you are seeing aces whiz by.  Karlovic has a pretty good forehand, and he is quite a volleyer for a guy his height.  He mostly only has a slice on the backhand, but he uses it well, and brings people to net where he often does quite well against them.  With a huge wingspan, it’s hard to get a ball by him or above him.  Then, on your own serve, you feel pressure to hold. Karlovic is no slouch and can use that forehand to apply a bit of pressure, so you feel that every opportunity you have must be taken and not missed.  Nadal generally has no problems with this, but most everyone else does.  And thus, Karlovic wins because he’s built a strategy that hides his limitations (non-aggressive backhand and lack of footspeed).

When Roger plays Karlovic, he actually gets pretty close to the baseline and hopes to cut off angles.  It usually takes him about a set before he can start to read the Karlovic serve.  His goal is usually to slice it short with the backhand or up-the-line if he can manage it, and get the ball in play.

The first set invariably went to a tiebreak.  There’s still a lot of pressure to win all the points on your own serve.  Federer eventually lost one of his and the prospect of losing the first set loomed large.  Who knows what would happen if he dropped a set?  Perhaps Karlovic gets more confident and the second set also goes to a tiebreak?

Karlovic, at match point, found himself at net.  Federer took a swipe at a pass.  Karlovic drop volleyed the shot.  But it wasn’t as short as he hoped.  Federer managed to barely reach there, then play a bizarre shot.  He tried to lob over Karlovic.  The shot actually worked as Karlovic mishit the overhead, and Federer saved match point.  Federer was able to take the first set 8 points to 6 in a tiebreak.

The second set more or less went the same as the first as both players held serve game after game.  However, by the end of the second set, Federer was starting to return a lot more serves and force Karlovic to play more points which invariably favors Federer.  Federer secured the break and won the set 75.  The third set was much nicer to Federer as he got an early break.  Although he had chances in later games to perhaps secure a second break, he mostly rode that one break to the victory.  Final score: 76 75 63.

Kohlschreiber had a relatively easy straight sets win over Falla, and del Potro had an even easier win over Yen-Hsun Lu.  The two will meet in the fourth round.

AO Day 4 (2R): Late night upsets

Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt go way back.  Hewitt was contending for Slams nearly a decade ago winning a US Open in 2001.  Roddick followed suit two years later.  The two were considered rivals for the number 1 spot.  All this was, of course, prior to Federer breaking out and leaving both of them in the dust.  Even though neither are reliable Slam contenders, especially Lleyton Hewitt, they’ve both had staying power.  Roddick, at the very least, could hang his hat on being in the top ten for many years, a feat that was broken only last year when he slipped outside the top ten.  Hewitt hasn’t been in the top ten in years either, a combination of injury and a playing style that was more suited to the 1990′s than the 2010′s.

So when the two head on court, it’s like a reunion tour from a decade ago.  To be honest, Andy Roddick continues to do new things with his game.  The last few years, he’s played a counter puncher style using his big serve to win a few free points and patient play to win others, then pressure his opponents on their game.  It worked fine for most players ranked outside the top ten, but rarely made an impression on the top players like Federer and Nadal who could be just as patient but were more willing to go for big shots and make them.

Andy Roddick has been accused of being too passive, so it appears he’s spent his off-season working on being more offensive.  He was able to apply some of that in his first round win over Robin Haase.  Roddick took the first set over Hewitt, but early in the second, he landed awkwardly on his right leg and pulled his right hamstring.  He would later say that he could move fine if he didn’t have to stretch out on that side, but obviously, tennis is a running game, so you can’t avoid that.  Although Roddick tried to hit harder and shorten the points, he gave up too much.  Hewitt took sets 2 and 3 at which point Roddick had to retire.  He felt that this was something that would take a few weeks to recover from so he wouldn’t be able to play Davis Cup though he felt he probably wouldn’t have played anyway.

Final score: 36 63 64 ret.

Roddick wasn’t the only upset victim.  In the battle of the Frenchman, Gilles Simon took on Julien Benneteau.  Benneteau had reached a final last week in Sydney where he lost to Jarkko Nieminen.  Due to a rain delay of the finals, Benneteau didn’t arrive to Melbourne until Sunday (he was expected to arrive on Saturday).  Fortunately, he was on the top half of the draw and didn’t have to play singles until Tuesday.  Apparently, a week’s worth of play at Sydney has left Benneteau pretty sharp.  Benneteau won his first round against Karol Beck pretty handily in straight sets.  He faced countryman Gilles Simon who struggled in five sets to beat a player from Thailand ranked about 200.

Simon also found himself down two sets to none after two hours of play before coming back to take sets 3 and 4.  However, it wasn’t enough as Benneteau took the fifth set handily.  Final score: 75 76 16 36 62

These two weren’t the only Frenchmen in action.  Jo-Wilfried Tsonga played early in the day and had a comfortable straight set win over Ricardo Mello of Brazil.  Tsonga will take on another Portugeuse speaking player, this time, from Portugal.  Frederico Gil upsets Marcel Granollers in four sets.  Tsonga appears set up to meet either countryman Benneteau or Japanase number 1 Nishikori in the fourth round.

Gael Monfils also played a Brazilian, namely, Thomaz Bellucci.  The left-hander took the first set before Monfils came back in four sets.  Final score: 26 60 64 62

Early in the day, Novak Djokovic continued to play matches as if they were practice rounds, relaxed and in total control.  Djokovic beat Colombian, Santiago Giraldo, 63 62 61.  Up next for Djokovic is one half of the marathon match, Frenchman, Nicolas Mahut.  Mahut beat Ito, a wildcard from Japan, in four sets.  Ito and Soeda had great performances in Chennai showing that the Japanese have more than Nishikori at the world-class level.  Djokovic continues to look like he’s playing well,  but he’s really not faced anyone too problematic.  Mahut has a big serve, but isn’t expected to pose too many problems.  If Raonic gets past Hewitt, then Djokovic might have his first real match of the tournament.

Raonic needed four sets to get by German, Philipp Petzschner. Raonic was asked what he did during the offseason.  He said he serves just fine, but he felt his return game needed work so he spent time on that.  Up next for Raonic is Lleyton Hewitt.

And, although this tournament is the Australian Open, the French generally fare better on hard courts than clay courts, and Murray appears likely to face a series of Frenchman if he wants to win the title.  After playing a tight four setter against Ryan Harrison, Murray played much lower ranked Edouard Roger-Vasselin.  His father also played on the tour and once reached the French Open semifinals upsetting Jimmy Connors in the quarterfinals.

Murray started this match is quick style with a 50 lead and eventually took the first set, 61.  Although Murray continued to get chances to break, few breaks were forthcoming after that.  Roger-Vasselin’s consistency and aggressiveness, especially coming to net, went up while Murray was missing a little long here, a bit in the net there.  Compared to the first match, Murray started to hit more aggressively off the ground even hitting a 115 mph forehand winner late in the third set.  Although the outcome was never in doubt and Murray held serve fine, he might be a touch frustrated that he didn’t get the breaks he wanted which would have kept the match short.  Like Federer, Murray does tend to look at these matches in a positive manner, pointing out that he didn’t lose serve, despite not breaking as much as he might have wanted.

He’ll point to a relatively high first serve percentage, nearly 70%, partly due to taking the pace off some of his first serves, and that he had many more winners and fewer errors than his opponent.

Murray will now take on the serve-and-volleying Michael Llodra who needed five sets to beat American/Russian Alex Bogomolov.  If Murray gets past Llodra, he may have to play Monfils, then Tsonga before reaching a potential Djokovic in the semis.  This is a pretty tough draw, perhaps the toughest in the tournament.

AO Day 3: Off-court talk

On the third day of the Australian Open, Americans were not faring well.  Mardy Fish and Donald Young both lost, and John Isner nearly lost too.

Let’s start with the Isner match.  John Isner’s second round match was against David Nalbandian.  John Isner’s strengths and weaknesses are well-known.  He serves big.  He has a big forehand.  He doesn’t move that well.  His fitness is a bit suspect.  His heart isn’t.

David Nalbandian is much like Lleyton Hewitt.  These two guys were near the top of the game (Hewitt reached number 1) about a decade ago.  It’s been a good five years since either was somewhat good.  Certainly, neither player are contending for Slams.  However, they are still very steady players that can chase balls down.  They just lack the kind of power today’s players have to scare the competition.  Oh yes, they’ve also been injured.

Nalbandian’s strategy was simple.  Try to get Isner’s serve back and move him around.  Drop shot the big man and work on his lack of speed skills.

Despite Nalbandian’s strategy working out quite well, Isner has a lot of fight in him.  Isner gets into matches where he struggles to break.  He knows he has to go into big serve mold and have to hold every single time.  And that was what Isner had to do in sets 4 and 5.

The controversy occurred in in the final set, 8-all.  John Isner had been struggling a bit to hold his own serve while not being able to take advantage of the few opportunities to make inroads on Nalbandian’s serve.  Isner was also beginning to cramp especially between sets 4 and 5 when Nalbandian took a break and Isner sat down for quite a few minutes and tightened up some.

Down 30-40, Isner hit a big serve up the T.  The line judge called the ball out.  There was murmuring from the crowd.  Chair umpire, Kader Nouni, overruled.  David Nalbandian didn’t quite hear this because of the crowd.  He sought clarification to what happened.  He found out the call had been overruled so he challenged.  Nouni said Nalbandian had waited too long and refused to let him challenge.  Nalbandian became livid.  He asked for a tournament referee to come out.  The referee basically said this was a subjective decision.

Eventually, Nalbandian did decide to play, but since he couldn’t challenge, Isner got the ace and brought the game to deuce.  He eventually held serve.  Although Nalbandian got a good start in his game, Isner got a few good shots in and hit a few bad drop shots.  Isner managed to get into a tight net exchange and won.

Nalbandian, to his credit, took things in stride.  He waved to the crowd and headed out.  During the press conference, when he heard that the serve was out, he complained to the press.  The match was over by then, but he felt he challenged in plenty of time and the chair umpire was overstepping his bounds.

Earlier in the day, Mardy Fish was playing Alejandro Falla.  Fish, to be fair, was not playing well.  He made over 50 unforced errors.  However, what bothered him the most was Falla getting various breaks.  Fish prides himself on being very fit and being impervious to heat.  He felt Falla was not so fit and that he was breaking the rules by taking these breaks to recover.  This has happened before.  For example, Novak Djokovic, prior to last year, often struggled with heat.  He’s defaulted out of several Slams because of his lack of fitness.

Marcos Baghdatis was playing Stan Wawrinka who won the first two sets.  Baghdatis was so upset with himself and smashed not one, not two, but four racquets.  This seemed to enliven Baghdatis who took the third set.  However, it wasn’t enough to win the match.  Wawrinka took the fourth set and the match.  Most commentators found the racquet smashing more amusing than malicious.

AO Day 3 (2R): Tomic heads to third round with win over Querrey

Sam Querrey spent a lot of 2011 not playing that much tennis.  He had had a similar experience when he had a freak accident in Bangkok where he sat on a glass table that broke under his weight (when asked why he sat on the table, he said that he had just taken a shower and didn’t want to sit on wet clothes he placed nearby so he sat on the table).  Although he missed a few months (basically everything after Bangkok), he came back and had one of his best years (2010).  So everyone felt he could make the comeback.

But could Querrey do it against the new “it” guy in Australia, Bernard Tomic?  Tomic may not get as much press play as Andy Murray, who gets year round coverage, but it must come close in Australia itself.  The Aussie press must have gone into overdrive when he managed to eke out a victory over Fernando Verdasco in the first round when he looked down and out.  Tomic admitted that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to play in the daytime as he had requested.  The heat seemed to sap all of Tomic’s strength, but he found ways to win on fumes and once he claimed a first set, he gathered a second wind.

Querrey is, unlike Verdasco, a bit more level-headed.   Perhaps he’s a bit too calm.  He’s been criticized for being California laid-back and not being intense enough.  He smiles, flips his racquet.  He seems like a genuinely nice guy.  So does John Isner for that matter, but with Isner, you see his never-say-die attitude.  When things are getting tough, he somehow pumps in another ace, hits another forehand winner, lumbers to get one more shot.  Isner moves nowhere near as quick as Querrey, but the fight in him is tremendous, and it gets him through a lot of matches.

You knew, if Querrey’s game wasn’t too far off, that he wanted to assert his power, play “big man” tennis.  Hit a big first serve, then use his big forehand to end points quickly.  Querrey hits a pretty clean ball compared to Verdasco and there was some hope he might be less bothered by Tomic’s junk style of hitting.  And for a set, this was true.  Querrey took the first set on the strength of big serves and moving the ball around well.

Tomic, being the smart man that he is, opted to play an evening match.  You see, when the tournament is held in Australia, the local boy gets to play on center court, that is, Rod Laver Arena.  This favoritism meant that Roger Federer, who hasn’t played a match of Rod Laver Arena in years, was going to be relegated to the third court, Hisense Arena.  Such a thing happened to poor Pete Sampras back at the 2002 Wimbledon, and he lost to then unheralded Swiss, George Bastl, who, other than upsetting Sampras on Court 2, a court Sampras never played on due to his numerous Wimbledon wins is known for his bandanna that Roger Federer so admired as a young fellow Swiss that he adopted the sartorial flair.

Roger Federer, however, is not Pete Sampras.  He saw Rafael Nadal had also played a match on this court.  He was willing to play good citizen, perhaps “perfect” as Nikolay Davydenko might have said.  But he never had to deal with the issue as his opponent, German, Andreas Beck decided that it was his back that made play impossible.  Federer could sympathize with this situation, though he made it sound like, in his press conference, that Beck really wanted to play against the incomparable Fed.

But, back to Tomic.  Tomic was put on Rod Laver Arena on a cool evening.  He still looked a touch sluggish, though it’s hard to tell.  Tomic is not the fastest mover.  He’s learned, when pulled wide, to push up a lob.  He’s faster than Isner who, when pushed wide, often watches the ball go bye-bye.  Tomic began to weave his spell.  He didn’t quite push the ball as much as he did against Verdasco, but his serve has some pop to it, and gives him decent leads on serve.  And with all the slices and dices, Querrey was beginning to miss shots, and not quite tell where the ball was going.

Soon Tomic took the second set, then the third set, and in the fourth set, it felt, despite a rather competitive start, that it was only a matter of time before Tomic would break Querrey, and that he did.  It’s rare for a player to hit winners with a slice backhand, but Tomic had Querrey so bamboozled, that Querrey didn’t know where Tomic’s backhand was going.  When that slice drifted down the line one more time, Querrey was camped at the other corner watching it sail oh-so-far away.

Final score: 36 62 76 63

While the great Swiss saw no real action today, his future opponent did.  The match pitted big serving Ivo Karlovic against Carlos Berlocq, the guy who played rather poorly against Novak Djokovic in an opening round of the US Open, but kept things light and lively before he eked out a game to end his humiliation.  It actually seemed like this lowly player might do Roger’s work for him as he split sets with the tall Croatian.  But no, Dr. Ivo took sets three and four.  The man is nothing if not resilient.  He had had an injury that wouldn’t heal and took him off the court for nearly a year, and now he’s back at it again, the most efficient ace machine ever.  Roger Federer will spend most of the next round hoping to poke back enough second serves to rattle the big man and then to dominate his own serve and hope for a straight set win much like the last time they met.  Karlovic’s serve is so dominant, and he hits a mean forehand and hits a decent volley too, that he has rattled players as good as Tsonga that can’t see his serve properly.  This will be a good test of whether Federer’s eyes are still accurate as he’s struggled against big serves at the big W.

Federer’s future doubles partner, Stanislas Wawrinka, played the enigmatic Cypriot, a player good enough to reach the finals of a Slam as he did in Australia a few years ago.  Australia, wouldn’t you know, is a hotbed of Greeks as well as many from the former Yugoslavia, thus the raucous fans that supported the likes of Philippoussis and Tomic that trace their heritage to Greece and the former Yugoslavia respectively.

Despite the cheers, Baghdatis was not able to fend off the number 2 Swiss, who won in four sets: 76 64 57 61.

And Grigor Dmitrov?  Will he ever break through?  He’s always in the mix when everyone talks about who is coming up next, but he’s yet to show the big results.  It looked like he might have a decent victory over Nicolas Almagro who prefers the clay over the hard stuff, but it seems like fitness must have done the Bulgarian in.  Although Dmitrov won sets 1 and 3, he lost the fifth set at love, suggesting fatigue, despite an evening match.  Almagro takes the match in five: 46 63 67 64 60.

Today, Djokovic and Murray will play as will Monfils and Tsonga.  Gilles Simon takes on fellow Frenchman, Julien Benneteau.  The French are out in force!  Andy Roddick plays longtime rival, Lleyton Hewitt.

AO Day 3 (2R): Isner wins marathon match over Nalbandian with controversial call 10-8 in fifth

John Isner knows how to fight.

There are clearly limitations to his game.  He doesn’t cover ground very well.  He looks tired when matches run long.  But he relies on his serve to bail him out of danger spots.

Nalbandian took the first set 64, then there was a big exchange of breaks in the second set, which ended up Isner’s way.  Nalbandian then got two more breaks to take the third set 62.  At this point, Isner was struggling to break Nalbandian so he realized he had to hold serve every time he was up which is something he’s used to with his style of game.  The two stayed on serve to the tiebreak which Isner won 75.  The fifth set stayed even though Nalbandian had more chances to get into Isner’s game.

Late in the fifth, Isner appeared to be cramping and was struggling to serve and to fetch balls.  At 8-all, 30-40, Isner hit a big first serve.  The linesman called it out, but the chair umpire overruled.  Nalbandian then called for a challenge, but the chair umpire said it was too late.  Nalbandian vigorously complained saying he challenged in a reasonable amount of time.  In the meanwhile, Hawkeye said the serve was out.  Nalbandian asked for a referee, but the referee sided with the chair umpire.  Isner managed to get out of that service game and held for 9-8.

Nalbandian then got up 30-0 on his serve, but Isner played some powerful shots and then chased a drop shot down for match point.  Nalbandian threw another drop shot at match point which Isner chased down, and there was a fast net exchange that Isner eventually won and took to win the fifth set, 10-8.

To Nalbandian’s credit, once he lost, he was pretty gracious and left the court, though announcers said he would probably be upset once he saw the result.  However, there’s usually a Davis Cup match shortly after the Australian Open and that’s still a big priority for Nalbandian.

Both Nalbandian and Isner knew what this was like.  Last year, Isner lost a five setter 9-7 in the fifth against Cilic while Nalbandian won a five setter against Hewitt 9-7 in the fifth.

Up next for Isner is Feliciano Lopez who had a fairly comfortable match.

Final score: 46 63 26 76 10-8.

Roger Federer was scheduled to play on Hisense Arena, the third stadium, for the first time in years.  However, his opponent, Andreas Beck hurt his back and withdrew which meant Federer didn’t have to play off Rod Laver Arena.

Alexandr Dolgopolov played a second five setter in a row, beating Kamke in five.

Tomas Berdych sailed through two sets against Rochus who was runner up in Auckland and had to qualify so he had played a ton of matches.  Rochus managed to push the third set to a tiebreak, but Berdych won it.  Final score: 61 60 76.  Berdych is the smoothest looking player when his game is on and just oozes effortless power, even more than Federer.

del Potro had a straight set win over Kavcic, and was feeling better about his match.

Mardy Fish struggled keeping balls on the court against Alejandro Falla.  Falla plays tight into the baseline and got lots of balls back making Fish’s life difficult.  He won 76 63 76, and is the first top seed to fall.

Donald Young struggled against Lukas Lacko who just hit a bit bigger than him and won in four sets.

Kevin Anderson won his match over Stakhovsky in four sets.