Weeks 3 & 4 - Australian Open (men's)

Spectator · All-time great

RE: Weeks 3 & 4 - Australian Open (men's)

indiana · Tennis legend

Andy will be 3rd on Hisense folloing two women's singles, Errani vs Wickmayer and Witthoeft vs Begu.

11 am local time start, midnight GMT, with no relevant 'not befores'. So essentially sometime in the middle of the night UK time.

indiana · Tennis legend

Federer and Nadal are locking out RLA ahead of the Aussies too. Tomic vs Groth follows Andy on Hisense and Kyrgios is on MCA.

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Andy won 6-1, 6-1, 7-5 and no longer has Federer in his section

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Wow!

That was a surprise when I checked teletext earlier on - not Andy winning, Fed losing!

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
Federer and Nadal are locking out RLA ahead of the Aussies too. Tomic vs Groth follows Andy on Hisense and Kyrgios is on MCA.

Fed not locking out the RLA anymore wink

indiana · Tennis legend

They might let at least one of the Aussies in then with Tomic and Kyrgios into the last 16.

Dimitrov came back to win fom two sets to one down against Baghdatis so that's one scheduled appointment that Andy will have to take on somewhere.

Bottom quarter could look worse :

Murray vs Dimitrov
Kyrgios vs Seppi

steven · Tennis legend

L32: (6) Andy Murray WR 6 beat João Sousa (POR) WR 55 (CH 35 last Jul) by 6-1 6-1 7-5

L16: (6) Andy Murray WR 6 v (10) Grigor Dimitrov (BUL) WR 11 (CH 8 last Aug)

H2H 4-2 but 1-2 last year

emma · Strong Club Player

congratulations to Andy on his 3 set win over Sousa - only 4 more to go.

vohor · Grand Slam Champion

All going very nicely to plan so far :)
GL against Dimitrov

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Or perhaps just a taste of the new world order as The fab 4 battle Father Time. Both Dimitrov and Kyrgios will improve significantly over the next 2 years with the later having the potential to be a major force in men's tennis for a decade!

Hopefully Andy will stay fit and have the athleticism to maintain his rank well not his thirties but I feel a new cohort of young players coming onto the scene will make it tougher than in recent years.

EddietheEagle · County player

Dimitrov has a backhand weakness (very evident in the Baghdatis match) which he will try and cover. If Murray cranks up his backhand including his change of direction, I can see him beating Dimitrov in straight sets, perhaps four if he has his usual mid-match service wobble. I reckon he'll be well up for this match.

vohor · Grand Slam Champion

Muzz gets RLA :)

Looks the marquee match up for sure; go Andy!

indiana · Tennis legend

With the relative dearth of absolute top talent coming through for a few years after Nadal / Djokovic / Murray / Del Potro there always did seem a possible real window for Andy if he could outlast the existing top players and plunder before another really good generation came along.

Andy though has for various reasons marked time for a year or so, Djokovic most particularly shows no sign of going away anytime soon and there are more stirrings in the latest generation, though I still think he can take all of them near his best for a time yet.

To me, he certainly has a real chance of a fourth Aussie Open final ( and I wasn't expecting to be so hopeful of that ), but would quite likely then face that man again.

Anyway, Dimitrov first and needs to be on his game for that.

indiana · Tennis legend

I see that Nadal ( four in a row ! ) takes the afternoon slot on RLA vs Anderson, most interestingly over Berdych vs Tomic who are on MCA. Don't know if it's a feeling of an accident waiting to happen with Nadal or what.

The other Aussie, Kyrgios ( vs Seppi after his Fed win ), winds up proceedings on Hisense, after a Legends Doubles, a Men's Doubles, a Mixed Doubles and a Fast 4 Tennis showcase.

In early rounds, they were throwing such great Aussies as Tomljonovic onto RLA, but are certainly not overexposing Tomic and Kyrgios.