Day 3 was Simply thrilling. Thirteen hours of tennis and for the most part it was either high in quality or drama.

Janko Tipsarevic’s capitulation against Fernando Verdasco was simply bizarre. In the past he has said that sometimes he doesn’t want to be on the court but would rather just lose and get back to his computer games. Last night, after failing to convert 3 match points he seemed to quit. He slammed his shots all over the place in the tie-break and the final set and ignored a gameplan which had given him a great chance to beat the Spaniard. Verdasco won 2-6 4-6 6-4 7-6 6-0

Gilles Simon and Roger Federer had a very good match in the night session. People will look at the result and question Federer and while at times he wasn’t his usual self Simon was very good. He seems to be playing the way that he was when he reached number 6 in the world again. Federer did look out of sorts but when it really mattered he came through, 6-2 6-3 4-6 4-6 6-3

Justine Henin and Caroline Wozniacki looked in excellent form as they easily dispatched their second round opponents but there was almost a huge upset as Venus Williams struggled to defeat Sandra Zahlavova. Zahlavova played a superb first set and managed to win it on the tie-break. On the last point of the set Williams got what looked like being a bad injury. For 15 minutes she was treated and when they began again she was struggling to move freely. Unfortunately the break and/or the injury got to Zahlavova and she couldn’t recapture her form losing 6-7 6-0 6-4.

There were numerous other dramatic matches in a day of real excitement and all the results can be found here. http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/scores/cmatch/08ws.html