We said farewell to one true legend – Lleyton Hewitt. The Australian was ousted in 3 sets by David Ferrer,but he still remains active on the Men’s Doubles side as he and Sam Groth are still in the tournament. More upsets and favourites struggling happened in round 2 and round 3 could be no different

(3) Roger Federer v (27) Grigor Dimitrov

This is a rematch of their QF meeting on the first week of the season. In a Brisbane QF Grigor took his first set ever against Roger but failed to climb the mountain and lost in 3. This will be their first meeting in best of 5 sets action as well.
Grigor took away Paolo Lorenzi and then had to fight to get through Argentinian Marco Trungelliti in 4 sets.

The 210-th ranked Marco was supposed to not give him much trouble, but expectations weren’t met, as the Bulgarian spent nearly 3 hours on court while committing 40 unforced errors in the process and was surprisingly passive in many parts of the match.

Dimitrov is only 35-22 in best of 5 matches in his career, with -16.4% ROI. He has been priced 6.00+ on only 4 occasions in Grand Slams and has lost all of them.
Roger hasn’t wasted much time dispatching Basilashvili and Dologopolov . He was troubled with flu in the beginning of the year, but seems well recovered and focused like we used to seeing him.

The Swiss was perfect 15-0 last year, while being priced at 1.20 or shorter in best of 5 matches. In his entire career in Melbourne Park he has only 1 loss in that price range, that came last year when he was beaten by Andreas Seppi in the 3rd round.

Will the same happen again?

(29) Nick Kyrgios v (6) Tomas Berdych

Last match of the program for tomorrow on the Centre Court, and this has to be the cherry on the cake.

This is their first meeting and both will be fighting to match their respective results here from a year ago when both layers were eliminated by Andy Murray in consecutive matches – Kyrgios in QF and Berdych in The SF.

Tomas took out players outside top 90 while Nick had to play 67-th Carreno Busta and was troubled by 40-th Pablo Cuevas. He didn’t lost a set against the Uruguayan, but had to save some SP’s in the 3rd before he rediscovered his serve and it bailed him out of trouble not only in that game but in the eventual tie-break as well

The last time Tomas lost to a player outside top 10 here in Mebourne was in 2010 to Evgeny Korolev. Since then he has 3 QF and 2 SF to his account, his best w/l % record within the 4 grand slams.

First set winner could be crucial for the outcome of the match. Tomas has only 19-39 record with a whopping -55.8% ROI when losing the 1st set in Grand Slams, compared to 105-11 and +21.4% ROI when he wins the 1st frame of the match. The Australian is 5-8 when losing the opening set and 16-4 when he takes it home.

Both are not the most mentally trustable players out there, but with a partisan crowd behind, Nick will make Tomas stay on Rod Laver Arena not a pleasant thing for sure.

Margarita Gasparyan v Yulia Putintseva

The two girls follow same script so far in this year’s Australian Open – make an upset and the follow that up with a win against less ranked opponent. That script will take a detour here, as the winner will see her name in the 3rd round of a Major for the very first time.

Margarita defeated No.20 Sara Errani from a set down and then grind her way through Kurumi Nara in straight sets. She was 110-th just before taking the title in Baku last July and now is a win away from a top 40 debut (currently projected ranking of 43).

Yulia followed one of the upsets of the tournament – taking out Caroline Wozniacki in Round 1 with much more relaxed win against Xinyun Han in the next and while currently sitting at 61, she can book a new career ranking and be just outside top 50.

This will be their 2nd overall meeting – the first came at ITF Astana in 2014. Then a 226-th ranked Gasparyan scored a 3.73 price underdog winner vs the 171-st Putintseva.

Yulia has last 5 in a row and 9 of the last 10 when she is priced between 2.00-2.99,and in her career she has only -32.9% ROI, while Gasparyan is 13-3 in last 12 months between 1.50-1.99 with +37.2% ROI