Aussie Sweet 16

Don't worry tennis fans, only another 9 days of staying up until 6 a.m. watching tennis.

The first Slam of 2010 is well underway in Australia and we have already seen quite a bit of stunning tennis, story-lines, and great matches.

Now we're down to 16 men and 16 women, all with dreams of hoisting up the trophy.

Tiebreak will be coming out with a podcast in a few hours recapping the first few rounds of the Aussie, as well as previewing all of the Rd. of 16 matches so be sure to check it out!

Before the podcast comes out, here are a few things we've noticed so far...

BEST MATCH:

The best match so far has to have been the Blake/Del Potro marathon. A semi-injured Del Po comes into the match against Blake, who has been dropping like a stone in the rankings. After over 4 hours of battle, Del Po raised his arms in victory, winning 10-8 in the 5th. To me, this was the best and maybe last chance for Blake to have a big win in a Slam. He was up a break early in the 5th, but once again his impatient and high-risk brand of tennis proved to be his downfall. He made a few too many errors late and leaves Australia with a big opportunity missed.

RECURRING THEME:

Retiring. It's the first Slam of the year, isn't everyone supposed to be well rested and injury free? I guess not because Baghdatis, Koubek, Youzhny, Hernandez, and Gil all had to call it quits in the first 3 rounds.

BIGGEST SURPRISE:

Kim Clijsters. Kim's mind-boggling 0 and 1 loss by Petrova certainly was unexpected. With Henin looking a bit hindered by her leg, Kim looked like the biggest threat to stop Serena from winning the Aussie. That threat ended quickly.

BEST FORM:

Serena for the women, and Davydenko for the men. Serena has dropped 9 games in 3 matches. She has been devastating so far.

Nikolay Davydenko, arguably the best player in the world since October, has been equally destructive in his first 3 matches. He has dropped only 17 games in 3 matches, and has won one set 6-0 in each of his matches. He looks to be on a collision course with Roger Federer in the quarters.

CLOSEST CALL:

Federer/Andreev 1st round. This 1st round was the first one in recent memory that Roger was tested in the opening round of a Slam. The huge forehand of Andreev gave Roger headaches for the first 3 sets of the match. At 1 set all, Andreev greatly outplayed Federer in the 3rd set having multiple set points. The Russian couldn't close out the set and let Fed escape in a tiebreak. In the 4th Andreev handed Roger the match 6-0.

We've also seen Hewitt playing good tennis, Rafa looking healthy, Novak quietly moving through the draw, and Murray moving better than ever.

Stay tuned for the Tiebreak Tennis Podcast with much more info about the Australian and previews of all Rd. of 16 matches.

You can access the podcast either on iTunes by searching "Tiebreak Tennis", on the top of this blog, or by visiting http://tiebreaktennis.podbean.com.

TT