Before I talk about today’s early results, I want to talk about yesterday’s results.

Tennis really needs a better way to report its scores.  Scores are fine, but they really don’t tell you the story.

I’ll give you three examples from yesterday, two from women’s matches.

Maria Sharapova is down 6-3, 4-1 down, double-break.  It looks like she’ll be an upset victim of Caroline Garcia who is French despite her surname.  But Sharapova fights back.  Do you know how many games she loses after that point?  Zero.  She wins 11 games in a row to defuse a threat.  But the box score shows 3-6, 6-4, 6-0.  It looks like Maria just straightened the ship in the second, and came back comfortably.  No sense that she was in dire straits.

Second example.  Kim Clijsters is playing Arantxa Rus who, despite her name, is not Spanish, but Dutch.  Clijsters is cruising 6-3, 5-2 with break points to win a comfortable match and move to the next round.  Clijsters falls apart.  She doesn’t win another game in the set as she can’t keep the ball in the court.  She musters a single game in the third set, but loses going away, 6-1.

This could be a criticism of the women’s game where serve is not powerful enough, nor is mental toughness or spin good enough.  Women play a flat style that lends itself to errors if the head isn’t there.  But, that’s not my point.  It’s that the final score doesn’t reflect any of this drama.

Let’s get back to the men’s game.  Rafael Nadal is having a decent match.  He’s won the first two sets 7-5, 6-3.  It’s not the kind of dominant performance he would like, but he’s getting through.  The final set score is 7-6.  But, it was 5-1 to Andujar, with two set points. Nadal got one point back, then Andujar double-faulted to bring it to deuce.  Andujar hit a deep shot that was called out, but was in, alas, they had to replay the point.  Andujar then has another set point, and Nadal again fights it off.  Indeed, Nadal fights off some 8 set points before winning the match 7-6.  But you can’t tell, right?

OK, to today’s matches.

Everyone likes to point to Roger Federer and Janko Tipsarevic playing back in 2008 in the third round of the Australian Open.  Tipsarevic pushes Federer to five sets, with Federer escaping 10-8 in the fifth.  This would be a nice meeting if Tipsarevic zoomed to the top ten.  Instead, he’s been floating around 40 in the world, the third best Serb behind Novak Djokovic and Viktor Troicki.  Federer may have one bad match against a pumped-up opponent, but he figures out how to beat players he should beat.

One had some hope for Tipsarevic.  He’s not dropped a set in two rounds and had two 6-0 sets in those matches.

But before you could say hello, Tipsarevic had already lost the first set, 6-1.  He kept it a little closer the next two sets, but still lost, 6-4, 6-3.

David Ferrer continues to show he is the best of the next tier of players.  He plowed over Sergiy Stakhovsky who was a tricky game that often ends with him at the net.   6-1, 6-1, 6-3.

Gael Monfils stopped the dream run of Steve Darcis of Belgium in straight sets, and puts another Frenchman in the fourth round.  Albert Montanes beat Mikhail Youzhny in straight sets.  Fabio Fognini won in four sets over Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.

Ferrer will play Monfils in one  fourth round match while Montanes will play Fognini in the other.  This is a nice draw for Montanes and Fognini.

Two other Frenchman are currently trying to get into the fourth round.  Tsonga won the first set.  Tsonga was down a break, but broke back and is even with Wawrinka in the second set.  Gasquet just won the first set, 6-2, over Bellucci.

Everyone’s waiting for the blockbuster match between Djokovic and del Potro.  Djokovic should win this relatively handily, but here are a few things that could help del Potro.  del Potro has yet to play any of the really big names.  However, he has beaten Soderling twice.  He was supposed to meet Nadal but ended up not playing the match.  Without that, we have no idea what form del Potro is in.  He’s had two good wins.

del Potro has his huge serve, and he was in the top 5.  But he is a bit vulnerable when it comes to foot speed.  While he possesses the biggest forehand in the game, and he moves well for a big man, he doesn’t move super quick.  Djokovic will want to take advantage of this and force del Potro to move.  It’s unclear what del Potro’s conditioning is.  Still, everyone is hopeing for a great match, and del Potro certainly has the mental toughness to win the tough ones.

We’ll see.  That match follows the Tsonga-Wawrinka match.