After the seeded players' turmoil in the women's singles over the first two days of the Australian Open Tennis tournament, it was the turn of the men's singles to witness the departure of seven seeds in round two in Melbourne on day three.
Bernard Tomic of Australia seems to be drawing on the strength from the home crowd so far at the event and getting better as the matches progress, as he overcame the 22nd seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber in four long sets, including three that went to tie-breaks. He had trailed one set to love after losing the first set tie-break, before coming through to victory over the steady German.
His win guaranteed an Australian will make the last-16 at their home event for the first time since 2012, when both Tomic and Lleyton Hewitt achieved that distinction. Tomic now plays fellow Aussie Sam Groth, who put out Australian wonderkid Thanasi Kokkinakis in five sets, as the 18-year-old ran out of steam following his own five set victory over 11th seed Ernests Gulbis in round one.
In the battle of the big servers, another Aussie Nick Kyrgios put out Novak Djokovic's conqueror in the recent Doha event, Ivo Karlovic (seeded 23) in four close sets. Karlovic was followed out of the event by the Belgian David Goffin, seeded 20 here, to the unpredictable Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis, who 'bagelled' his more fancied opponent 6-0 in the decisive fourth set.
For Baghdatis it was like old times in Melbourne, as he reached the final of the Slam in 2006, but should find his next opponent Grigor Dimitrov a harder proposition. The Bulgarian number ten seed defeated Andy Murray at last year's Wimbledon tournament and could face Murray again should both players reach the last-16 here.
Not all of the seeds playing today perished though, as 24th seeded Richard Gasquet from France cruised through to the last-32 in straight sets against Aussie James Duckworth. There was serene progress through to the third round for Kevin Anderson (seeded 14) and Tomas Berdych (seeded 7).
Other seeded players to fall on day three included Jeremy Chardy of France (seeded 29), Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic (28), Leonardo Mayer of Argentina (26) and Martin Klizan of Slovakia (32).
