All right, finally, all hail broke loose. Andy Roddick, down for the count. Mardy Fish, you're outta here! Amelie and Aravane, pfffffft! It was an eventful day Down Under, so let's celebrate, in our unique fashion, the surprise winners:
Casey Dellacqua - You've got to love it when granny (not Martina Navratilova) makes it out to the matches with an Australian flag "perched" on her flaming red hair. So Nana, what were you like at 20? Who knows, who cares, the important thing is that Casey rassled down Amelie Mauresmo to advance to the Fourth Round of the Australian Open, so you can expect all the cliches about "true-blue Aussies", "fair dinkum" Aussies, and "Aussie battlers" to zip across the front pages and Internet wires. I love it. Nobody does benign patriotism as well as Aussies. She gets a vulnerable Jelena "I hear you get paid more if you go three sets" Jankovic next.
Elena Dementieva - 'Lena, the forgotten girl of the WTA Tour, gave Shahar Peer just two games and one double fault. She gets countrywoman Maria Sharapova next. If I were freakin' shriekin' Maria I would be concerned about this, because 'Lena has the wheels and stinging groundstrokes to do some serious damage, and it's awful tough to get the ball by her.
Su Wei Hsieh - She survived a tough three-setter with Aravane Rezai, and all I can do is quote Bob Dylan . . . You don't need an Aravane to tell which way the wind blows. I'm inclined to shout, go Su Wei, but for the fact that it's a drag having to click back and forth from this post to the results page in an effort to spell her name right. Anybody giving Justine a chance to stop the Su Wei train?
