2021 Australian Open...ATP 2000...Melbourne, Australia

[stotty]

Kyrgios broke serve early in the second then just concentrates on holding his own. Seems a good plan I guess. The great thing about having a great serve is you can do that...break serve once and go to sleep.

1-1 set all.

[stroke]

Nick and Humbert deep in 4th set, Ugo up 2 sets to 1. Ugo is the real deal as we know.

[stroke]

Going to 5th. Very good match. Both players look like contenders for this tournament.

[stotty]

4-3 Kyrgios in the fifth. He should seal the deal from here barring somethings stupid, which isn't beyond the realms of possibility.

[stroke]

Good tournament so far. 3rd round looks good. This top half of the draw seems to have the more intriguing 3rd round matchups on tap. On an unrelated side note, that chair umpire for the Nick match has great bone structure, the greatest chair umpire bone structure of all time. She ought to do all of Nick Douche's matches. She just looks at him as if to say, "you are an idiot, and that don't impress me much(as Shania might say).

[stroke]

https://thesportsontap.com/2020/01/28/introducing-you-to-the-most-beautiful-tennis-umpire-in-the-world/

The chair umpire.

[stroke]

One more thing in the Douche' match. The crowd took to loudly applauding Ugo's first serve faults. Not a good trend.

[stotty]

One more thing in the Douche' match. The crowd took to loudly applauding Ugo's first serve faults. Not a good trend.

Not a good trend at all, but that's the kind of fans Nick attracts I guess.

At least he got his head down and tried to win. He even hacked quite a bit to break back deep in the fourth. Didn't think he had that in him.

[stroke]

Not a good trend at all, but that's the kind of fans Nick attracts I guess.

At least he got his head down and tried to win. He even hacked quite a bit to break back deep in the fourth. Didn't think he had that in him.

I was pulling for Ugo, but I have to admit, the 3rd round matchup vs Thiem is more intriguing. I would say match of the 3rd round intriguing.

[glacierguy]

Tomljanovic goes down 7-5 in the third to Halep. Never watched Tomljanovic before, enjoyed her play: serving 110mph giving her 1 or 2 'free' points per service game; ferocious return; and at times, great variation between crushing groundstroke followed by dropshot. Halep's strategy seemed to be give the ball lots of air and hope Tomljanovic hit long (which she did), plus extending her grunt to a split second before opponent's contact.

[stroke]

Nadal looking very good moving to 3rd round.

Great matches today, Douche' vs Thiem, Denis vs FAA, Djokovic vs Fritz(tough one for my dark horse), Alex vs Mannarino, Grigor vs PCB.

[stotty]

I haven't honed in the women's event yet, glacierguy, but will soon.That Halep is a fighter equal to anyone, for sure.

Medvedev looked amazing today. Haven't watched Rafa yet but Medvedev would be favourite off today's showing...mindboggling difficult to break down...the antithesis of a BG forehand yet it gets the job done, and some.

[stroke]

Copy Medvedev forehand. About as ugly as it gets at pro level. And his backhand is equally consistent and not much prettier. His serve is good, not Douche' good, but very good. His movement is probably best ever( along with Tsitsipas)for a 6'4 to 6'6" guy(Douche' and a prime Monfils are close, but neither, particularly Monfils, could or would play every point like Medvedev). And he is tireless and does not go away. I would say he vs Nadal at this point in their careers on this surface would be pretty close to a pick 'em with the oddsmakers.

[stotty]

Thiem v Kyrgios. Got to be worth watching that one.

[stroke]

Thiem v Kyrgios. Got to be worth watching that one.

This is a great tournament. Since about 2005, it has unbelievably been about the 3 pretty much. Obviously, 2 of them are still right in the mix here, but it certainly feels like to me things are finally changing after 15 years or so. That being said to me, we cannot stick a fork in it until a couple of FO's pass that Rafael does not win.