The seeds, they keep a falling.  It was already something of a miracle that Djokovic got this far.  After watching his game spiral out of control in the second set in the previous around against Philipp Kohlschreiber, Djokovic had to scrap to fight off match points, get a break of serve back and eventually win the third set in a tiebreak.

Poor Novak.  Some days his game looks really good and you think he’s ready to show that he belongs at number 2.  Some days his game looks really off.  It’s been alleged that he is suffering from some allergies and that is contributing to his poor play.

In any case, Novak ran into a player that wasn’t ready to give in.  Ivan Ljubicic, once in the top ten, but now, at 31, playing good, solid tennis, found himself the victor in straight sets, 7-5, 6-3.

Wednesday, all the men played with the entire fourth round being completed.

Rafael Nadal had his hands full with John Isner, now ranked #20 in the world.  Isner had to pretty much use the Karlovic strategy, which was to use his huge serve and hope that he could engineer a break here or there.  While Isner is more proficient from the baseline than Ivo Karlovic, he still doesn’t move nearly as well as Cilic or del Potro or even Querrey.  Indeed, all three players also hit a bit better from the baseline, too.  Isner is right at that level that Nadal can use his huge spin and create angles that can make it too challenging for Isner to handle.

Even so, with a big serve, Isner can often hang in sets.  After losing the first set 7-5, Isner wondered if Nadal would ever make an error.  Nadal had made zero unforced errors in the first set, probably a combination of how he was playing and how hard it was for Isner to pressure Nadal off the ground.  Nadal then threw in a double fault, then Isner hit a down the line winner, and Nadal dumped a forehand in the net to give Isner the only break in the second set.  Isner hung tough to win the second set.

The second set saw Isner’s first serve percentage dip below 50%.  Nadal faced no break points while Isner faced 6.  He was able to save 5 of them, but not the 6th, and Nadal cruised to a 6-3 third set win, thus avoiding the fate of second seed Djokovic.

In other matches, Tomas Berdych had an easy win over Viktor Troici, 6-1, 6-3.  Troicki got into the fourth round when Davydenko had to withdraw from his match due to a broken wrist.  Juan Monaco dug deep to easily take sets 2 and 3 from Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.  Andy Roddick played a workman-like game to beat veteran Jurgen Melzer, 7-6(5), 6-4.  Andy Murray found himself down a break against Nicolas Almagro, before reeling off a bunch of games to take the first set.  Almagro asked for a trainer, and after losing the first game of the second set, decided to retire.

Robin Soderling showed he can still handle the talented Frenchman, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, 6-3, 6-4.

Finally, in the most competitive match of the day, Marcos Baghdatis tried valiantly to follow up his victory over Roger Federer with a victory over Tommy Robredo.  Robredo did something that Federer found hard to do.  Keep balls in play.  Baghdatis had to his numerous balls but found many more of them coming back.  Although Baghdatis took a 6-0 second set, and had opportunities to break Robredo in three consecutive games, Robredo deflected every break chance by playing good solid tennis, and meanwhile engineered a break of his own, to finally take the third set, 6-4.

Today, two of the quarterfinals are being played: Ivan Ljubicic takes on Juan Monaco, and Rafa Nadal takes on hard hitting Tomas Berdych.  Berdych has been playing pretty solid tennis, and so this will be a good measure of Rafa’s playing.  Although Isner can hit hard, Berdych’s movement and power should be closer to del Potro, and this could make it interesting.

Tournament organizers have to be bummed that the top seeds keep falling.  Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Nikolay Davydenko are all out.  However, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, and Robin Soderling still survive to play.