For a guy ranked nearly 200, Bernard Tomic is fairly well-known.  Still only 18, Tomic has both excited and exasperated his Aussie fanbase.  For a guy as tall as Tomic (6’4″, possibly taller), he has a versatile game that some compare to Andy Murray.  Tomic can slice off both sides, and often does.  His slices seem to float forever, a contrast to the sharper pace most of the best slicers hit.  As a big guy, he doesn’t move as quick as Murray (who is perhaps the best big fast mover, if not the best mover on tour).

Fellow Aussie, Darren Cahill, said that Tomic, being so talented, has often been remiss in his fitness.  He knew how to play short points, go for bigger shots, drop games, to get through matches when he was feeling a bit tired.  Although Tomic has begun to address his fitness issues, he was severely tested by Nadal.

Tomic is a player that likes hitting down-the-line on both sides.  This is a huge thing if you want to be a top player.  Players like Roddick and Murray have often been reluctant to hit down-the-line, especially against pacey balls.  Those players that have good down-the-line shots have options to win points that those who shun the shot don’t.  He’s also quite good hitting the sharp crosscourt forehand, and occasionally the sharp crosscourt backhand.

Tomic prefers hitting behind a player, which he did time and again, and holding a shot until the last moment, until he goes one way or another.  But, he also throws in changes of pace, which Nadal is more immune than any other player.  Instead of playing a continuously aggressive style, Tomic will push his forehand, slice his forehand and backhand, try for a dropshot (which he missed).  His serve is good, but not booming.

But the most frustrating part of Tomic’s game is his erratic play.  He can break at love, then lose his own serve at love.  It’s like watching a crisper, modern version of Kimiko Date.  Date is (literally) an old school player, as if she had been cryogenically frozen since the 1990s and unfrozen a few years ago.  She had a flat style playing balls off-the-rise.  This lead to amazing shots and amazing errors.  It would not be unusual for her to hit 50 or more errors in a three set match.

Similarly, Tomic will look brilliant, get a lead, then toss in a drop shot that doesn’t even clear the net.  He will go for a big shot that he hits just wide, and do that time and again.

Nadal opened the match with an early break, then got a second break, and cruised to a 6-2 win.  Tomic was making a few too many errors.  Tomic was only saved by Nadal’s relatively low first-serve percentage which was hovering around 50%, which is far lower than his typical 70% first serve.  Nadal was also missing a few of his trademark inside out forehands just wide.

In the second set, Tomic started on fire.  All his shots started to land in.  He was connecting on serves and groundstrokes, and soon, Nadal was down 4-0 and in serious danger of losing a set for the first time in the tournament.  Instead, Tomic started making errors and Nadal got a break back, then held, then another break, and then held, before Tomic finally had a good service game to go up 5-4.  Nadal tied it up again, then broke again, and held to take the set.

This was reminiscent of the meltdown Date had when she had gone up double-break in her first round match against Aggy Radwanska.  Radwanska took a medical timeout, Date cooled down, and then sprayed shots, donating back both breaks quickly and eventually losing the match.  The difference was Nadal didn’t have to do anything to cool Tomic off.  He just stopped making good shots (and stopped playing smart tennis).

At this point, Tomic had been run ragged, and there was some expectation that he might choose to shorten up points only because he had run out of gas.  The good news was Tomic was still able to run.  The bad news is that Tomic didn’t suddenly find newfound steadiness.  Tomic was broken early in the third set, but held serve enough, until he was broken again, to lose 6-3.

In a way, Tomic’s variety hurts him a lot as he does silly things.  In this way, Murray was a smarter player even when he was much younger.  Murray’s main problem was a lack of desire to hit with power.  Murray would get into longer rallies, move the ball around, then when there was a chance, perhaps go for a bigger shot.  Tomic has big shots already, but he’ll hit them at inopportune moments.

In the other evening match, veteran Jurgen Melzer took on Marcos Baghdatis, former Australian Open finalist.  Melzer was the higher seed, and has basically turned on a light switch, his career being a solid top 40 player, suddenly becoming a top 10 player.  Baghdatis took the first set, but Melzer played net and took sets 2 and 3.  At some point, Baghdatis hurt his finger, and this apparently bothered him so much, that Baghdatis retired down 4-3 rather inexplicably, apparently bothered by the finger.

In an earlier match between Robin Soderling and Jan Hernych, former Aussie tour player Fred Stolle was doing commentary when Hernych noticed a “dead spot” on the court which halted play for about ten minutes on Hisense Arena.  A similar problem had halted the start of the Sharapova match the day before.  Stolle wanted the players to “man up” (or the Aussie equivalent).  He said they used to play on grass or clay where the ball would get a bad bounce.  His commenting partner said he saw the Sharapova match and said the ball simply didn’t bounce.  It wasn’t a bad bounce; it was no bounce at all.

This was a humorous exchange.  Because it was on a side court, they had no access to video from a tech crew that could have pulled up the video in question.

Marin Cilic and John Isner went toe-to-toe.  This was a good chance for Isner to get a solid victory.  Cilic hasn’t played well in over a year.  Isner had been playing decently for a year.  And the match score pretty much reflected that.  Isner took the first set, and Cilic broke twice to take the second.  Isner took the third in a tiebreak.  Cilic took the fourth in a tiebreak.  Cilic eventually took the fifth, 9-7.  Isner lamented how he had opportunities to win and couldn’t seize on it.

This lengthy match doesn’t bode well for Cilic who has to take on Nadal.  Cilic has beaten Nadal before, a beatdown in Beijing, during Nadal’s year of despair (when he didn’t win a tournament from Madrid of 2009 through Miami of 2010).  Most observers would say this was an uptime for Cilic and a downtime for Nadal, and don’t expect Cilic to dominate Nadal like this again.  Indeed, the expectation is that Nadal might win in straight sets or perhaps pushed to four.  It’s not that Cilic isn’t a good player, but he’s just playing good again, and Nadal is, after all, number one.

Perhaps the most intriguing fourth round match is Milos Raonic against David Ferrer.  Unlike Tomic, Raonic is more purely a power player.  He has a huge serve and hits plenty of winners off the ground.  Raonic says he always believes he can beat the next player, including David Ferrer.  Key to this match his Raonic holding serve.  Ferrer makes a player work hard.  He has shown his ability to handle power.  Witness his reasonably even record against Robin Soderling.  When Soderling is on, Ferrer struggles to keep up (but does better than most).  When Soderling is misfiring, Ferrer can take advantage and win.  And Raonic is not the hitter than Soderling is.

Robin Soderling will meet Alexandr Dolgopolov in the fourth round in his first potentially tough match. The two have never met.  It’s a matter of whether Soderling’s power game works against Dolgopolov or not.

Andy Murray takes on Jurgen Melzer.  Murray leads 4-0, but played Melzer mostly in 2008 and in early 2009.  Melzer didn’t begin his upward rise through the ranks until the French Open in 2010, so this will be a greatly improved Melzer.  Still, a good head-to-head can still be great for confidence.  Recently, Gilles Simon, who is just getting his game in gear beat Viktor Troicki, despite Troicki’s recent success (winning a tournament and Davis Cup), in Sydney.

On Day 7, the bottom half of the draw plays fourth round matches.  We look forward to it.