Australian Open - Day Six

First topic message reminder :

Day six sees the lower half of the draw play their third round matches.

Rafael Nadal V Alex Zverev - Perhaps match of the day. How good is Zverev and at what level is Nadal back to? On those grounds I take Nadal to win in 4.

Dimitrov V Gasquet - I take Dimitrov to win in 4.

Wozniacki V Konta - Wozniacki in three.

Simon V Raonic - Raonic in 4.

Monfils V Kohlschreiber - Could depend on what Monfils turns up. Monfils in 5.

lags72 wrote:Should be pretty straightforward for Dimitrov. I mean .....Istomin is only here by virtue of a WC, and ranked a distant 117.

Oh ........ wait a minute .......

And Dimitrov can have mental lapses for long spells in matches so we shall see.

Surely Istomin's gonna be knackered - he's no spring chicken!

I'd agree. Think it's the end of the road for him, but he sure done good to get this far .....

Could go two ways for Istomin against Dimitrov. He could be absolutely shattered and blown off the court or on the other hand he is coming towards the latter stages of his career and he knows this is probably his best ever chance to go deep in a slam. His confidence must be through the roof at this moment in time. He wouldn't fear anybody.

The problem is adrenaline can only take you so far, he has to be so exhausted. I am just so glad he backed up the novak win and to do so in 5 sets again has to be commended

Tomorrow, Murray in 3 sets, Federer in 4 (if it goes 5 I say Nishi), stan in 4, Tsonga in 4

I finally got to watch Fed's match (well, about half of it).  He looked very good, but Berdych was quite poor which made Roger's job much easier.

Rafa vs Zverev was quite late at night for me, so I only saw the first two sets.  Both players played worse than I expected them to.

Zverev is very good for his age, but somehow I imagined he would play better.  I do not know if it is just me but I seemed to remember him move better than what I saw last night.  Previously I thought he moved really well for his size - sort of like Delpo does - but I am not convinced now.  That could be a problem down the road.

Rafa played ok, but still within his usual level of the last couple of years and not substantially better than that.  There were way too many nervous looking unforced errors.  I suspect he is a touch slower than he used to be and it is just too hard to make up for that.  That said, even current Rafa's level is that of a solid top 10 player, so with Djokovic gone he has a fair chance to make the final.  If he does get there, and if he meets Andy, I would expect he would lose though.


I saw the tail end of Dimi vs Gasquet (about the last 8 games or so).  Dimi looked good, somewhere about his previous best from a few years' back.  Hopefully he and Thiem get to play in the QF.  Whichever way it goes, we will have a new-ish semifinalist from the bottom quarter.  I would be happy with a SF appearance for any of Thiem, Dimi or Goffin, and given his earlier heroics, I would not begrudge it Istomin either who I have actually quite liked even before this week.

summerblues wrote:If he does get there, and if he meets Andy, I would expect he would lose though.

Irrelevant, SB, irrelevant.