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Flags flying high, flags flagging by
Vasek Pospisil will face Stan Wawrinka in the third round in a rematch of his Chennai Open encounter against the Swiss.
The Canadian flags billowed into the winds the furthest while the Australian flag had a mixed bag of a day. 30th seeded Eugenie Bouchard wrestled a hard-fought victory against Frenchwoman Virginie Razzano, winning her second round match 6-2, 7-6. In the evening session at the Rod Laver Arena, her countryman Vasek Pospisil, seeded 28th, fought his way against his sore back and a spirited Matthew Ebden to make it to the third round.
The highly anticipated wild card partnership of Lleyton Hewitt and Pat Rafter wasn’t able to do much for flagging Australian hopes as the duo fell in straight sets in their opening round to the American-South African team of Eric Butorac and Raven Klaasen.
Doubling in sync
Patrick Rafter’s comeback in the doubles sadly ended on a losing note.
Day three also saw the start of doubles action at Melbourne Park. The results were pretty much straight-forward with most of the seeded teams advancing. The unseeded Indian-American team of Mahesh Bhupathi and Rajeev Ram advanced to the second round as did the Indo-New Zealand pairing of Yuki Bhambri and Michael Venus. The Indo-Chinese Taipei pairing of Divij Sharan and Yen Hsun Lu however failed to progress, falling to the unseeded team of Swede Johan Brunstrom and Dane Frederik Nielsen. The highlight of the day was the win of the British team of Ross Hutchins and Colin Fleming, with the former making a comeback after a year-long absence from the tennis circuit on account of cancer.
Miscellany
Bosnia and Herzegovina qualifier Damir Dzumhur is turning heads his way at Melbourne Park this year.
Other notable performances of the day include Jerzy Janowicz’s exuberant post-match celebrations, the anti-climatic end to the Daniela Hantuchova-Karolina Pliskova marathon brought on by the latter’s double-faulting at match point, Tommy Robredo’s hiccuping act against Julien Benneteau and the incredible run of Bosnian qualifier Damir Dzumhur into the third round, following Ivan Dodig’s pull-out in their second-round match.
