The Official Site of Brad Gilbert

What a strange day of tennis yesterday. They say every time you come to the park you might see something you’ve never seen. First of all we get 95-degree weather for the first time only to see the temperature drop 25 degrees by the end of the day. That’s why they say you get four seasons in Melbourne in a day.

Justine Henin was down a set and a break, and look like she was heading for the exits, then came back off the canvas to beat her opponent, Alisa Kleybanova, who ran out of gas when she was up. Only in her second tournament back finds herself in the second week. She had heavy strapping on her leg yesterday and it seemed like it hampered her movement. Kim Clijsters took the worst beatdown of her career, getting only one game against Nadia Petrova, and loses in 52 minutes, explain that one. The forgotten Belgian, No. 16-ranked Yanina Wickmayer, who had to qualify because of her suspension that was taken away, now makes for an interesting RD 16 against Henin. Wickmayer, is 11-0 on the year (with qualifying) and was a semifinalist at the US Open.

The Big Men keep rolling, four-for-four yesterday, led by 6′9″ John Isner’s brilliant victory over Gael “Force” Monfils. They say the courts are playing slow but the big men seem to be doing OK on the slow courts. The other big men advancing were delpo, Cilic and Dr. Ivo (Karlovic), all four set winners.

Defending champion Rafael Nadal was pushed to the limit by Philipp Kohlschreiber and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a 5′8″ guy with such a big game. Nadal was in control early but Kohlschreiber scrapped back and almost took it to a fifth set.

Today the Williams sisters take to the courts and Serena will look to get a little revenge against Suarez Navarro who took out Venus last year. Suarez Navaarro has a huge one-handed backhand and should test Serena more than her first two opponents. Venus takes on Aussie wildcard Casey Dellacqua and this should be a breeze to get into the fourth round. The Williams sisters really like the schedule with doubles on their off day and then coming back the next day to play singles matches.

The No. 2 (Dinara Safina) and 3 (Svetlana Kuznetsova) seeds have been playing under the radar with all the attention going to the Belgians and Williams. Maybe this is a good thing for Safina that nobody notices her and she is winning without anyone noticing s far. Kuznetsova finished at two in the morning without many people in the stands on Laver.

It should be a light workout today for Roger Federer who plays Albert Montanes, who came into Melbourne with an 1-8 record before winning a couple of rounds. The Spaniard also struggles at the US Open with an 1-8 record.

The popcorn match of the day is the “Bag Man” Marcos Baghdatis against Lleyton Hewitt in prime time. Bags took him out last week in Sydney in the quarterfinals en route to the title. But everyone remembers their epic marathon in the third round here two years ago when Hewitt prevailed in the latest match every at 4:34 in the morning. Look for Bags to get revenge and he’s starting to play like the old Top 10 form from a couple of years ago.

One interesting other note is that there are two men from Tandil, Argentina left. Everyone knows about delpo but Juan Monaco is the other player. He takes on “Machine Gun” Nikolay Davydenko who has only dropped 10 games so far in his first two matches. It’s pretty amazing this little town of 90,000 has two guys seeded in the draw.

The bottom half has all the big guys and they will be in action tomorrow while the top half has a lot more smaller guys.

G’Day Mate!