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.