Something about night sessions in Australia this year is providing sensational tennis for us. It might not be the best quality all the time, but we are getting entertaining sports. We had a match between two Australians go to a fifth set on Wednesday night, and it won't even be close to our match of the day. Djokovic is looking very dangerous early in this tournament and Nadal, well, not so much yet (more on that later). With two rounds almost in the books, we have a very intriguing tournament shaping up.

Honor Roll:

Bernard Tomic (defeated Kohlschreiber 67 64 76 76)- Tomic has said that he is fixing his attitude to properly concentrate on his tennis, and if beating Kohlschreiber in two of three tiebreaks is any indication, it's working. This was a well-played first-strike match on both sides, which is all the more impressive for Tomic because that's not his preferred style at all. It's a good result for Tomic and he has a real chance at a deep run here with this draw. Also, cool stat:  each player hit exactly 67 winners in this match.

Dudi Sela (defeated Rosol 76 57 75 63)- Frankly, this might be the best match Sela has played since he beat Andy Roddick at Queen's in 2010. Rosol was not at his best, but Sela was playing solid baseline tennis and really made up for his lack of power with precision placement and some beautiful passing shots. Sela also hit 12 aces, which is a bit of an unreal number for him. He deserves full credit for this match. His reward? A match with Rafa that, barring a miracle, won't have such a happy ending for the Israeli as this match did.

Steve Johnson (defeated Giraldo 63 64 62)- We don't talk about Steve Johnson enough. No one does. But the former NCAA champ has been getting better each year. Now he is barely outside the top 30. He has no significant weapons, but he plays very smart tennis and uses the entirety of the court very well. He keeps on beating better and better opponents. We'll see just how far he has come when he gets his next match against Kei Nishikori, who has not quite been performing his best this tournament.

Lost Their Homework:

Rafael Nadal (defeated Smyczek 62 36 67 63 75)- As Smyczek said in his post-match press conference, Rafa played his C or D game. I don't know whether it was illness, the heat, a lack of warmup match play, a combination of those, or something else entirely, but Rafa's game just wasn't there. He wasn't moving well, his toss on his serve was way too low, and he hit way too many poor errors. He admitted afterwards to not feeling well at all, calling it the worst he ever felt on court. The good news for him, though, is that he gets Sela next and probably won't be troubled by the Israeli no matter how poorly he is playing. He will have time to get better and get match play and may just be able to play himself into this tournament.

Lukas Rosol- This was not a good performance from Rosol, even if he doesn't like hard courts. He let the line calls rattle him, and he never really found a rhythm in the match. It's a shame for him, too, since it is very likely that he would have beaten Nadal (again) had the two met in the next round unless Rafa drastically improved from his round 2 performance.
 

Feliciano Lopez (defeated Mannarino 46 46 76 40 RET)- Feliciano has not had a good tournament. He will get the points and prize money for a third-round showing, but there is no reason he should still be in this tournament. He was outplayed by Adrian Mannarino, and his net approaches were awful. Mannarino had a 3-0 lead in the third-set tiebreak before some type of heat exhaustion hit him, and he was never able to compete again in the match. Lopez needs to drastically improve, or his next match will end the way this one should have–with a loss.

Match of the Day:

It is always interesting to see the commentators' and opponent's attitudes whenever a lower-ranked player plays Nadal. No one ever believes that Nadal will lose the match. You'd think that we would have learned from the Rosol upset in 2012, but the attitudes are always the same. And so it began when Tim Smyczek opened up break points on Nadal early in the first set. No one thought he could win. He broke Nadal early and often in the second set. But no one believed he could actually win. So when Nadal broke him late in the third, everyone assumed the script would revert to schedule.

But Smyczek broke back and won the third set in a tiebreak. Now, finally, with Rafa clearly physically bothered and Smyczek playing the match of his life, it looked like Smyczek could actually win. Of course, from there Rafa would win the fourth set with a bit of breathing room and take the fifth after earning the decisive break in the 11th game. This match will also go down for having one of the most incredible acts of sportsmanship you will ever see on a tennis court. If Smyczek isn't an early candidate for the ATP Sportsmanship Award, there's really no point in having it anymore. With Nadal serving at 6-5, 30-0 in the final set, a fan made a noise that distracted him in his service motion and appeared to cause a miss. To his credit, Smyczek asked the umpire to give Nadal his first serve back.

Of course, Rafa survived and lives to fight another day in this tournament. He won't need to pick things up to beat Dudi Sela. It will take a miracle for Sela to upset him even at the level Rafa played in this match. He will need to take it up several notches, though, if he wants to win another match after that. Possibly more important, though, is how this match will affect Smyczek. He has nothing to feel bad about here and has every reason for this to push his career forward. He is a talented player who has had trouble with his consistency on even the Challenger Tour. If this doesn't provide a huge confidence boost for him, I don't know what will.