Australian Bernard Tomic wins in four sets

Bernard Tomic delighted the home fans at the Australian Open on Wednesday with victory over Sam Querrey.

In what was always a closely-contested match, the Aussie number one emerged a 3-6 6-3 7-6 (7/3) 6-3 victor under the lights of the Rod Laver Arena.

Things did not start well for the home hope as Querrey won the only break point of the first set to claim it in just 24 minutes.

Seven of Querrey’s 22 aces came in that opening set, but having had a good look at his booming serve, Tomic began to get a read on it.

He hit back by taking the second, breaking serve twice, but the match hinged on the third-set tie-break.

Tomic palyed some sparkling stuff in it to move ahead for the first time and as Querrey’s errors mounted so did his challenge.

An error-strewn eighth game in the fourth set cost him dearly and he handed it away with a double fault when break point down.

Tomic duly served out and he will now face another of the ATP’s rising stars, Alexandr Dolgopolov, in the last 32.

However, another young prospect, Grigor Dimitrov, saw his hopes ended by 10th seed Nicolas Almagro.

The Bulgarian, dubbed ‘Baby Federer’ by some, led by two sets to one but fell apart in the decider to lose 4-6 6-3 6-7 (4/7) 6-4 6-0.