Cynthia Lum/WireImage.comThe marathon day started with Aussie Casey Dellaqua
win over Amelie Mauresmo …

30-(hour) love

Yes, no, maybe so, night tennis surely must go?

Few folks were able to bear the entire proceeding, as complete sleep deprivation is no way to conduct oneself at a Grad Slam. The only way to stay wide awake during the Roddick contest, which ended past 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, and through the Hewitt contest, which began at 11:49 p.m. on Saturday night and then finished just before the birds started chirping on Sunday morning, was to take a long nap in between and that's simply not possible for most folks on site.

After keeping a keen eye on Casey Dellacqua's three-set upset of Amelie Mauresmo on Friday, I watched Roddick painfully lose to Kohlschreiber, stayed through the interviews and wrote up the match, finally slipping under the covers at 5 a.m.

I got up too early the next day because the Sonly Ericsson WTA Tour wonk within couldn't miss Anna Chakvetadze v. Maria Kirilenko, then watched most of Blake in his five-set thriller v. Seb Grosjean and then, after the interview, wrote that match while watching Federer steal from the Tipper, Janko Tipsarevic. I stayed through the interviews and wrote up Fed's straining heroics. I then watched Venus Williams beat Sania Mirza 7-6, 6-4 (all of you who read this site know that was an absolute must for me) went to both interviews and finally watched a set and half of Hewitt-Baggy before going back to the hotel. There, I chewed on stale nachos with BBQ sauce (possibly the worst snack of my existence), watched another set or so on TV and then crashed hard on my pillow.

Fortunately, when I woke up Sunday morning and went to the gym unaware who had won, I was able to watch the replay of the fifth set.

HEWITT WOWS SLEEP-DEPRIVED AUSSIES
While I'm not thrilled with their sameness of styles, they both competed like hell and it's good to see Hewitt putting himself up again in a huge way, even if his game is still limited. I'm not giving a Hewitt great chance to beat Novak Djokovic on Monday night, because his body will be totally whacked out given what must have been a less than restful Sunday, but we all know that he has the crowd back in his pocket and he'll fight until his body-building sister, Jaslyn, has to curl him off the Plexicushion.

There is a macho type of been-there, done-that element to staying up past midnight and watching the classics, but in the home country of the Slam, 4 a.m. is way too late. Major props to the fans, who stayed in mass to watch the final set, but many folks who didn't have tickets were in bed by then and the drama passed them by. That's not how you sustain interest in the sport.

Cynthia Lum/WireImage.com … and ended with Aussie Lleyton Hewitt
celebrating his victory over Marcos Baghdatis.

I do not agree with those who said that the match should have been delayed until the next day, because that's a slap in the face to the ticket holders, the vast majority of whom had bought seats specifically to see local hero Hewitt and Greek-Australian favorite Baghdatis. If the tournament was worried about Hewitt's nationalistic fans fighting Baggy's Greek Fan Club fans before the match, they would have had a more riotous group on their hands had they tried to delay it. You cannot tell fans they are free to exchange their tickets for another session and expect them to be satisfied when that was the match they wanted to attend.

So many issues came up with the 30-love hours of the Aussie Open's first weekend. The first was whether Venus and Sania's match should have been moved and I'm firmly in the women's corner on this one. Both spoke to the issue, but WTA leader Venus spoke most firmly and in stern tone ("I'm only going to say this once"). Here's what she had to say:

"I'll tell you a synopsis of what happened, and I really don't want to take any more questions about that. But basically the day session went longer, and the tournament did ask if Sania and I would consider playing at Vodafone or playing tomorrow. Both of us didn't want to, for reasons that we felt like our match was important. We also felt like we wanted the schedule to go as planned and that we are very good players and wanted to play. Also for the fact that we were in doubles and Sania is also in mixed. So that makes it very difficult for us, too. So the tournament definitely listened to us, and gave us the opportunity to go out there and play some great women's tennis. I think we're both happy with the result of what the tournament chose, and we played some good tennis for the crowd."

What Venus was saying, in so many words, is "I'm a friggin' six-time Slam champ, Sania is a popular up-and-comer and we deserve or place our the big stage." I couldn't agree more, especially given the circumstances at Vodaphone, where Tomas Berdych and Juan Monaco were still locked in battle. Had they agreed to the tournament's request, they would have played in front of virtually no one until 1 a.m. That kind of match deserves a bigger crowd.

What the Slams must do is to start the matches earlier in the day and in the evening. Let's try 10 a.m. next year for day sessions, okay, and see where that goes. For the night sessions, how about 6:30 p.m.? Yes, TV wants to maintain its 6-7 p.m. news hour, but who watches national news at that time anymore anyway? No one I know, and I'm of the age of people who actually watch the news. Folks, the habits of the 1950s actually ended in 1960.

How would that hour change have played out on Saturday? A 2:34 a.m. stoppage of Hewitt-Baggy, still a very late hour, but not monstrous. Roddick would have been done just past midnight. That way, the charm and coolness factor of attending late night match is maintained, but the insanity of the hour is goes way.

With all that said, the tournament listened hard and long and on Monday, there will be only one night match: Hewitt v. the Djoker.

There were some on court developments on Sunday after Hewitt left the building. Maria Sharapova and Justine Henin will face off and you can read my preview on foxsports.com/tennis.

Serena Williams, who outthought Nicole Vaidisova 6-3, 6-4, will play Jelena Jankovic, who ended Casey Dellacqua's hopes, in what should be a thriller.

I talked for a little while to Daniela Hantuchova, whom I picked for semis at the outset of the tournament. She's looking real good now and spoke of how for once in her career, she has a very good draw to the semis. "First time ever I'm not playing a Williams or Justine or Kim [Clijsters]," she said. She'll face Kirilenko on Monday in what could be tussle, but you have to like the veteran's guile in that one.

Rafael Nadal is catching breaks at a hard-court Slam at P-H Mathieu retired down 6-4, 3-0 with a knee injury. He'll face fellow lefty Jarkko Nieminen. David "Underachiever" Nalbandian was given a 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 beating by Spain's Juan Carlos Ferrero , who will play David Ferrer. The O-less one thrashed Vince Spadea 6-3, 6-3, 6-2. That's leaves James Blake holding up the US flag on the guys' side.

I guess Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is no longer intimidated by his compatriot and doubles partner Richard Gasquet, as he took him out 6-2, 6-7(5), 7-6(6), 6-3. The attacking Tsonga is a real threat now and will play Mikhail Youzhny, who downed Nikolay Davydenko 7-6(2), 6-3, 6-1. I'll try go deeper on Tsonga on Monday.

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