Day six of the 2010 Australian Open could have been compared to an exhausted runner who, after finishing a race and drinking ample fluids, immediately finds a soft bed and blacks out for 10 hours of deep, reviving sleep.

Indeed, the end of the third round in the year’s first major tournament marked a point in time when hardly any matches captivated the throngs who flocked to Melbourne Park’s tennis complex. With the exception of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s rousing four-set win over Tommy Haas, every other men’s singles match fizzled.

World No. 1 Roger Federer? An easy 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 win over 31st-seeded Albert Montanes.

Sixth-seeded Nikolay Davydenko, the hottest player in men’s tennis? An unchallenging 0, 3 and 4 win over No. 30 Juan Monaco.

Third-seeded Novak Djokovic? A ridiculously easy 1, 1 and 2 thumping of Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin.

Spain’s 26th-seeded floater, Nicolas Almagro? A breezy 4, 3 and 4 dusting of Colombia’s Alejandro Falla.

And then there were the matches decided not by tennis, but by fitness. No. 20 Mikhail Youzhny withdrew before his third-round match, thereby enabling Lukasz Kubot to become the first Polish man to reach the round of 16 at a major tournament since 1982.

Two other matches started, but didn’t last very long. Ninth-seeded Fernando Verdasco marched to the fourth round when his opponent, Austria’s Stefan Koubek, retired after Verdasco won the first set, 6-1.

In a night match that didn’t exactly rival their 4-hour, 34-minute battle two years ago in Melbourne, Lleyton Hewitt once again beat Marcos Baghdatis, but without playing two full sets. The 22nd-seeded Hewitt led, 6-0, 4-2, before his opponent from Cyprus said “no mas.”

The round of 16 should be sensational in the men’s tournament, but the conclusion to the round of 32 provided almost no entertainment value whatsoever.

Sadly, the same could have been said of the women’s tournament as well.

Daniela Hantuchova

Friday’s female competitions similarly failed to stir the tennis fan’s soul. Only one match proved to be somewhat compelling, Na Li’s three-set win over Daniela Hantuchova. The other seven third-round battles really weren’t battles at all, save for one set that was decided by a tiebreak.

The one appreciably interesting set came in Venus Williams’s straight-set dismissal of Australian sweetheart Casey Dellacqua. The sixth-seeded American had to perform under pressure after cruising in the first set, but Williams used her major championship experience to pull out the second set tiebreak, 7-4. It’s a sad commentary on the day’s play, however, that Venus’s 6-1, 7-6 (4) triumph rated comparatively high on the drama scale.

The rest of the women’s field did nothing to please an unlucky set of Australian ticketholders on a sun-drenched summer Saturday in the land Down Under.

Ninth-seeded Vera Zvonareva polished off Gisela Dulko, 1 and 5.

13th-rated Samantha Stosur whipped Alberta Brianti, 4 and 1.

Car0line Wozniacki, the 2009 U.S. Open finalist, faced a contentious first set against Shahar Peer, but the No. 4 seed barely had to lift a finger in the second set of a 4 and 0 victory.

Top-seeded Serena Williams – like Wozniacki – served up a bagel in her 0 and 3 demolition of Carla Suarez Navarro.

Belorussian ballstriker Victoria Azarenka also made a trip to the bakery, as she blitzed Tathiana Garbin in a commanding 0 and 2 conquest.

Even a matchup of two seeded players – No. 17 Francesca Schiavone and No. 10 Agnieszka Radwanska – turned out to be fairly noncompetitive, as Schiavone rolled to a 2 and 2 win over an opponent who looked as body-snatched as Kim Clijsters was in her Friday loss to Nadia Petrova.

Yes, the first Saturday at the 2010 Australian Open was the sound of a tournament taking a long rest. That’s okay… the second week of competition should produce some terrific – and titanic – tussles.

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