Tennis:- Federer glides through to Round 4

The World No. 1 and '08 winner here at the Australian Open, Roger Federer sailed through without any troubles to the Round of 16 going past the No. 31 seeded Spaniard, Albert Montanes, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, in under two hours. The Swiss master had a perfect game in terms of his service, winning around 90% of points of his serve. Infact, Montanes couldn't even get to 40 even in one game, let alone create a break opportunity. The aces flowed intermittently as the first serves kept coming out as if from a well oiled machine.

But it was not the same case with his one-handed whipped backhand and the forehand too at times. Federer was quite frustrated on quite a few occasions as the shots found the net and he even let out a few yells, quite unusual to him. Meanwhile, Montanes looked good at times, but didn't have any answers to the Federer serves. He barely managed to hold his service well, but Federer managed to find the one break of serve needed, in each of the three sets by his sheer brilliance. It was just another match for the great player, who will be tested as the "real" tournament starts now. He is sure to have a tough time when he meets local hope Lleyton Hewitt in the Round of 16.

Lleyton Hewitt though already had a tough game in his hand as he was pitted against Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis. The Round 3 encounter was expected to be a tough one for both players and was billed as the day's attraction. All expected the match to be long and hard, similar to the one the two players had in '08. The match though turned out to anything but a tight one, as Hewitt took the game by the scruff of the neck, racing away to wrap up the set 6-0. Baghdatis had barely got his eye and found himself in deep waters. He fought hard in the second set despite struggling with his right shoulder. He finally gave up when he was broken at 2-3, and decided to quit the game. It was quite a dampener for the boisterous crowd who expected a 5-set thriller, but they would have to wait till monday when Hewitt faces up the great man.

Novak Djokovic is the only Serbian left in the tournament after former Women's World No. 1's, Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic bid adieu to the tournament, much earlier than expected, upset by lower ranked opponents. Janko Tipsarevic from the men's draw too has gone out and Djokovic has been left alone to the fly the Serbian flag. The '08 champion has been quite good in the matches thus far and he had another breeze in the third Round dispatching Denis Istomin 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 in just 97 minutes. The tall Uzbek was made to do all the hard running as the 3rd seed made him toil. Djokovic raced to 5-0 in the first set with some neat play, using delicate drop shots to good effect. Istomin finally got on board with his 3rd service game before Djokovic served out the set. It was more of the same to follow for the rest of the match as the tall unseeded Uzbek had no answer to Djokovic's power play. Djokovic has been quite good in the tournament so far and he would be expected to get to the quarters easily as he plays unseeded Pole Lukasz Kobot, who got through as Mikhail Youzhny couldn't play their match due to injury.

All top seeds except No. 8 Robin Soderling have got through to the Round of 16 in the men's draw, whereas there have been a string of upsets in the women's draw. But as the seeds now clash against each other from here on in, there will be many exciting battles in Melbourne Park.