Australian Open Crisis Center, Day 3

Hi all. Here's your new Crisis Center for discussing the tennis at Melbourne Park. We are expecting a high volume of comments here, so to help in keeping the day's threads manageable, we ask that you keep this one on-topic - i.e. focused on tennis commentary.

Matches of the Day:

Men: We're into the second round. On court 6 Fabrice Santoro will be playing Philipp Kohlschreiber. On Court 2 Marin Cilic plays Janko Tipsarevic for the second time this year; in Chennai he pulled off a win over three sets. Later in the day on the same court, former finalist Marcos Baghdatis takes on number 16 seed Robin Soderling. Soderling has a 3-0 record against Baghdatis on hard courts.

Of course, many of you will be watching the two men's daytime matches on Rod Laver Arena. Both are first-time encounters: Novak Djokovic against Jeremy Chardy, and Roger Federer versus Evgeny Korolev (I'm sure most of you already know that the latter is Anna Kournikova's cousin).

Women: I can't recall the last time I saw former world number 4 Jelena Dokic play, so I'm somewhat intrigued by the prospect of her match on Rod Laver Arena against 17th seed Anna Chakvetadze. The two have never faced off before.

It's hard to believe that Dokic is still only 25. Her appearance in the Wimbledon semifinals came in 2000, when she was 17; the year before that, as a qualifier, she sensationally put out world number one and 1997 champion Martina Hingis in the first round in SW19, on the way to the quartefinals. She's now ranked 187. The story of her past few years has been colourful, to say the least: she's spent three years out of the game, has broken with her difficult father, and has recently been attempting a comeback, having won a tournament to gain a wild card for the Australian Open.

As always, enjoy the tennis.

-- Rosangel Valenti