Australian Open 2011: Nadal Faces A-Tomic Test, Del Potro Out

Bernard Tomic defeated Feliciano Lopez against odds and will meet Rafael Nadal in the next round. His straight sets victory over Lopez means that Nadal will not have an easy outing this time round. Difficulties would be compounded by the high decibels from a hostile crowd. It has not caused problems for Nadal in the past, say when he  met Andy Murray in Wimbledon or ATP WTF. But in Bernard Tomic he will meet an opponent who has height advantage to nullify the edge in the top spin forehand. Tomic moves better now and serves better. But these will not be sufficient to nail Nadal. Tomic will have to hit winners or force errors on Nadal. Rally should not be allowed to go beyond ten shots. The effervescence in Tomic which every eye in the Rod Laver arena will catch and reverberate with resonance has potential to hurt Nadal in some way. Tomic has said that he could win against Nadal. Nadal has to pass Tomic test and many other tests to give birth to Rafa Slam. He has a tryst with destiny.

Juan Martin Del Potro lost to Marcos Baghdatis. It had little to do with wrist. His movements were sluggish and he was impatient in rallies. Eleven unforced errors in the seven games played in the first set was indicative of the things to come. At break point in the third game of the second set, the racquet went out of his hand as he served. The trainer came to check the status of his wrist, but perhaps there was no cause for concern. In the first game of the third set, Baghdatis played a very casual game and the entire scene changed. Del Potro came  back in the match and it looked that the match will go beyond three sets. A casual sixth game where Del Potro committed two double faults changed the scene again. In the ninth game foot fault was called on the first serve of Baghdatis and he double faulted. He could not play the shots well and lost the game. The set went to Del Potro at 6-4. Baghdatis did well to regain his composure at the start of the fourth set. But nervousness showed while having three match points at 5-3 40-0. He squandered the first two in the net with nervous shots, but was able to sneak in ace on the third. The final score line was 6-1, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. His next opponent is the eleventh seed Jurgen Melzer whom he has never played before.