Murray-Dimitrov headlines weekend play at the Australian Open

Roger Federer’s earliest Australian Open loss since 2000 dominated most of the headlines on Day 5 of the tournament, but the weekend brings with it some thrilling matchups.

by Griffin Kurzius

Result: Grigor Dimitrov [10] def. Marcos Baghdatis, 4-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3

On the day that Roger Federer was upset, Grigor “Baby Fed” Dimitrov found a way to advance. Facing off against the upset-minded Marcos Baghdatis, the Bulgarian won in epic fashion, 4-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.

After trailing two sets to one, the No. 10 seed Dimitrov began coming to net more and successfully neutralized Baghdatis’ impressive power game. Overall, the 23-year-old won 42 of 58 points from the net.

While ranked only 78th in the world, Baghdatis, the 2006 Australian Open finalist, performs his best under the stadium lights. The charismatic Cypriot has battled severe shoulder injuries of late, but he hit 51 winners and displayed a big serve and devastating forehand.

This win speaks highly of Dimitrov’s physical and mental development. In the past, he might have gotten winded and rattled against a testy opponent like Baghdatis. But he maintained his composure and played his best tennis.

Dimitrov will play No. 6 seed Andy Murray, who beat Joao Sousa in straight sets, in the round of the 16.

Following Federer’s loss, the Dimitrov-Murray winner potentially has an easier road to the semis, facing the winner of Nick Kyrgios-Andreas Seppi instead of the four-time Aussie champion.

by Elliot Turnbull

Result: Andy Murray [6] def. Joao Sousa, 6-1, 6-1, 7-5

Andy Murray is through to this year’s Australian Open Round of 16 after he made light work of Portugal’s Joao Sousa. The sixth seed was required to switch to Hisense Arena and took only two hours and six minutes to overcome the world No. 55. The Scotsman hit an impressive 39 winners on his way.

This result sets up a mouthwatering contest in the next round, as Murray will get a chance to amend for last summer’s Wimbledon quarterfinal defeat to Dimitrov. Dimitrov failed to read the script for their Wimbledon match, which saw him brush aside the 2013 champion in straight sets.

Dimitrov recovered twice from being a set down to beat Cyprus’s Marcos Baghdatis over five sets. The thriller lasted almost three and a half hours on Court 3; both players were supported by a very loud and passionate following, which made the match feel like a Davis Cup duel, not the third round in the Australian Open.

Murray has the slight edge head-to-head. They have played each other six times with Murray winning four. The pair last met during the ATP Paris Masters in October. Murray got the upper hand during that contest, 6-3, 6-3.

Speaking to the the Associated Press after Friday’s match, Murray stated how he’s expecting a tough game against Dimitrov, ranked No. 11 in the world.

“It should be a good match,” said the three-time finalist here. “My record against him is 4-2. He has obviously improved a lot over the last couple of years. It should be a fun match.”

by Bill Connelly

After an uncertain first couple of rounds, Friday’s third-round women’s action went according to plan, which means that 15 of the 24 remaining in the women’s draw are seeded, and a 16th is two-time Aussie champion Victoria Azarenka. Seven of the top 10 are still alive, including six of the top seven seeds.

It’s a rooting dilemma in almost any tournament: we love the early upsets, but we love the late-round heavyweight battles. We don’t usually get them both, but this week in Melbourne struck a nice balance. Ana Ivanovic fell, and Caroline Wozniacki got routed by Azarenka, but look at the potential matches on the horizon: Venus Williams vs. Aga Radwanska and Serena Williams vs. Garbine Muguruza in the round of 16, plus perhaps Serena vs. Azarenka, Petra Kvitova vs. Radwanska/Venus, Simona Halep vs. Ekaterina Makarova, and Maria Sharapova vs. Eugenie Bouchard in the quarters. That’s awesome.

And speaking of awesome, here are a couple of fantastic weekend reads. First, you’ve got Grantland’s Brian Phillips talking about the beautiful enigma that is Vika Azarenka:

As she got her game more and more under control — she first hit no. 1 after crushing Sharapova in the 2012 Australian Open final — she spent more time in the public eye. And she turned out to be weirder than anyone expected, harder to read. She dated a celebrity, which, OK, nothing strange about that — but the celebrity she dated was Redfoo, the electro-pop rapper-producer from LMFAO, who showed up at her matches under giant fronds of Sideshow Bob hair, wearing massive novelty eyeglasses. Redfoo is the son of Berry Gordy Jr., the founder of Motown Records, which was awesomely context-destabilizing; Azarenka was a 23-year-old tennis player from Eastern Europe, but maybe she was secretly hanging out with the Vandellas? She would show up at, like, Knicks games in a leopard-print vest and fingerless biker gloves. She would crimp her hair out into a pale fantail and go to awards shows wearing Redfoo’s glasses. There was nothing at all edgy or off-putting about this; it was just not behavior tied to an image or branding strategy. Rather than saying, Here is a coherent vision of the identity-concepts I represent, she was communicating something like, This feels fun to me at this moment. In the pro-sports media grammar of 2015, she might as well have been speaking Dothraki.

Then you’ve got Juan Jose Vallejo’s wonderfully descriptive profile of Genie Bouchard’s playing style:

Genie Bouchard is a baseline fundamentalist. At first this doesn’t seem all that surprising or revolutionary – contemporary tennis is pretty much a baseliner’s game. But Genie is absolutely fixated on straddling that baseline, no matter the cost. And once there, she is perpetually proactive about moving forward like a piranha smelling blood to attack any short balls. There’s also little doubt in her mind about where her shots are supposed to go: Genie always looks to get her opponents on the run by hitting the ball into the open spaces of the court. Since it’s difficult to attack from defensive positions, Genie is likely to get shorter and shorter balls from her opponents, and she’s particularly good at putting those away. Bouchard lets her opponents know that no short ball will be forgiven, and that their only hope is to hit great shots on the run if they’re going to escape.

A fourth-round win over Irina-Camelia Begu would free Bouchard up to once again battle former idol, Sharapova.