Australian Open: 2nd Round, Day 4

It's late tonight in Australia, and Marat Safin of Russia is still playing Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus. Baghdatis won the first two sets 6-4, and Safin came back to win the next 6-2. He leads 5-3 in the fourth.

Earlier today, Roger Federer defeated Fabrice Santoro 6-1, 6-2, 6-0 in just 1 hour and 20 minutes.

This was Santoro's 62nd Grand Slam tournament appearance, breaking Andre Agassi's record.

"It was a tough match for me," Santoro explained. "It was not easy to have fun, but I tried to have some."

Despite the rout, Santoro was ready to take on Federer again.

"Because it's so beautiful, what he's doing," the 35-year-old Frenchman said. "At my age, you can be able to play your match and appreciate your opponent, too.

"Today, I feel like he's coming from somewhere else. I served quite good. I was moving well. I was fit physically. I was hitting the ball well. And I won three games."

What a breath of fresh air. Here's the whole interview. See also Federer out-foxes Santoro.

Lleyton Hewitt, Novak Djokovic, David Nalbandian, James Blake, Juan Carlo Ferrero, David Ferrer, Fernando Gonzalez, Tomas Berdych, Sam Querrey, Sebastian Grosjean, Vince Spadea, Juan Monaco, and Marin Cilic also advanced to the third round of the men's singles.

On the women's side, Ana Ivanovic, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Venus Williams, Daniela Hantuchova, Anna Chakvetadze, Nadia Petrova, Sania Mirza, Na Li, Katarina Srebotnik, Maria Kirilenko, Agnieszka Radwanska, Marta Domachowska, Virginia Ruano Pascual, Ekaterina Makarova, Sabine Lisicki, and Caroline Wozniacki (Whew!) advanced to the third round.

With a name like mine, I'm pretty good at slavic names, but this list has me reeling! Some of them I have no idea how to pronounce even.

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Australian Open: Day 4

It's tomorrow morning Down Under, and Day 4 of the Australian Open will begin in a few hours.

The big surprise so far was 9th seeded Andy Murray of the UK losing to the talented Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the first round, 7-5 6-4 0-6 7-6(5).

Murray actually won more points. Tsonga hit both a ton of winners (57) and a ton of unforced errors (61).

Today in the second round, Roger Federer, the world No.1 and top seed, takes on the 35-year-old Frenchman, Fabrice Santoro, and Marat Safin takes on 15th seed Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus, who reached the finals here in 2006.

Santoro is delighted at this chance to play Federer at least once before he retires.

Note to Lleyton Hewitt: Don't call your coach "Roachey."

More later when the matches are underway.

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