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.