The last couple days have been incredibly exciting here in Melbourne, not to mention incredibly hot. In fact, yesterday they suspended play on the outside courts for most of the afternoon (they closed the roof on Rod Laver and Vodafone arenas). The highlights over the past couple days have probably been the Men’s night matches. On Monday, Safin defeated Benjamin Becker in an epic 5 setter. Becker of course was the man who ended Andre Agassi’s career at the US Open last summer. Then last night, American Michael Russell took a two set to love lead on Hewitt, but the Aussie crowd rallied behind Hewitt and he stormed back to win in 5. On the Women’s side, Sharapova gutted out a tough three set victory, 9-7 in the third over Camille Pin of France. James Blake beat Moya for the second time in a few days in straight sets to move onto the second round, next up is 19 year old American Alex Kuznetsov, who won his first ever ATP match last night. Fellow American’s Mardy Fish and Andy Roddick are into the third round, and we could see some more American’s in the third round, as Sam Querrey and Vince Spadea are currently on court battling it out.

I am predicting a five set upset victory for Gael Monfils over fan favorite Marcos Bagdhatis in tonight’s feature match, tonight in Melbourne meaning sometime yesterday in the States, don’t ask me to explain the time/date difference.

*****UPDATE***** I wrote this originally last night, and while I was correct in predicting Monfils over Baghdatis, it only took him four sets to do it. Also, Spadea lost in 4 to Hrbaty, and Querrey won in straight sets over Florent Serra.

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