Tomic v Dolgopolov - future of men's tennis?

As long as there are Australians left in the singles draw, the organisers (7 Network) will put them on court at night. And so as I place my cynical hat aside we welcome Bernard Tomic to Rod Laver Arena for his toughest test yet at the 2012 Aus Open. Also welcomed on court is the 13th seed Alexander Dolgopolov, a quarter finalist last year, and unbeaten in his matches against Tomic thus far. However, Bernie has elevated his game markedly since the last of those clashes. The prize for the winner is a fourth round meeting with Roger Federer. Best of luck with that one boys!

Both opened tentatively with Tomic struggling for quite some time before holding his second serve to lead 2-1. He took advantage of a sloppy game from Dolgopolov in game six to lead by a break 4-2 but squandered the advantage immediately after leading 40-15. At 4-4, Tomic surrendered another 40-15 advantage to hand his opponent the lead 5-4 and Dolgopolov thanked Bernard very much for the gift and served the set out 6-4.

Tomic once more had lost the opening set of his match, but this time was more significant - he had let a winning position slip from his grasp. Only time would tell whether he could steel himself and recover from the damage.

The rallies in this match were intriguing, not because of the originality of shots but the change of pace employed - at times it appeared the two were in slow motion playing careful precise ground strokes without too much risk until either of them decided to pick up the pace and hit out hard bringing the other along for the ride. The two or three paced nature of the match had its result in extreme doubt for most of the journey. Alex and Bernard each served quite well and the passing shots, especially down the line, were often high class.

The second set had Tomic still battling to hold serve in the first two attempts, but hold he did, and against the flow it was Dolgopolov who first failed and trailed 1-3. Repeating his first set heroics Tomic failed to consolidate the break, and Dolgopolov broke back straight away for 2-3 and then evened the set at 3-3 with his own serve.

Although the pace on the Dolgopolov serve was a worrying factor, and his game seemed to be at a more advanced level than Tomic, the Aussie stuck at the task admirably and by serving first maintained the lead out to 6-5 with accuracy and patience. Despite having set points in the twelfth game, Tomic raced through the tie break without losing a point to tie the match at a set each 4-6 7-6. This was a quality clash and had a long way to go yet.