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.