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Tomas Berdych

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TENNIS

Australian Open Updates, Through 1.5 Rounds

By Rembert Browne at
Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

At this very moment, there are no matches being played at the Australian Open. This is true for two reasons: (1) Everyone's asleep, because it's early in the morning, and (2) we, the East Coast liberal media elite, need time to write about what happened the day before without the distraction of amazing tennis matches.

The creators of the Australian Open, which is now more than 100 years old, knew that it was hard for American bloggers to write about tennis while tennis was taking place. Sure, writing about tennis is great, but at the end of the day, you'd rather be watching tennis.

Which is why, when the Internet gets ready for bed in the early evening, around 9 p.m. EST, the Australian Open wakes up.

It's perfect. Sure, you're kind of always between rounds, never really knowing who is at what stage, but that's fine. That's a completely manageable sacrifice to make for writing time, watching time, and (most importantly) no sleeping time.

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ROGER THIS

Who Is Tomas Berdych and How Did He Beat Roger Federer?

By Louisa Thomas at
Emmanuel Dunand/Getty Images

If I said I’d picked Tomas Berdych to beat Roger Federer last night, I’d be lying. But the Andy Murray freak-out against Marin Cilic was actually more surprising, even if Murray handled Cilic easily in the end. Federer was having a terrible night — he can really shank his forehand — and Berdych has tremendous talent. He hits ground strokes with the speed of serves. Last night, a few of his returns embarrassed the great Federer.

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