It’s Sunday and the French are surging. Already, Marion Bartoli sent No. 1 Jelena Jankovic of Serbia packing 6-1, 6-4, and not long after Alize Cornet came within a whisker of upsetting No. 3 Dinara Safina. The Russian staved off two match points – French teen Cornet missed a bullet forehand down the line by a sliver on one – to prevail 6-2, 2-6, 7-5. “I’m so lucky I have chance to play in the quarters because she deserved to win today,” said Safina on court.

Even so, the top half of the draw has been decimated, with Safina and No. 7 Vera Zvonareva the highest seeds remaining. There are no Serbs, no Williams’, not even a Sharapova. Women’s tennis: Wide open, or weak?

A Tall Order

I caught the last set of the Juan Martin Del Potro-Marin Cilic match today. Both are 20 (Del Potro is five days older), both are 6-foot-6, and both hit the crap out of the ball. As my colleague Tom Perrotta of Tennis.com said, this brings a new definition to “Big Tennis.”

Croat Cilic took the first set, but Argentine Del Potro, who used to have a habit of self-imploding and retiring, hung in there and was the steadier player the next three sets, winning 5-7, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2. Though so close in age, these two had never met at the pro or ITF level, but I expect to see a lot more of their clashes in the years ahead.

Del Potro’s win, by the way, makes him the youngest quarterfinalist in Melbourne since Richard Krajicek in 2001 (the Dutchman was 75 days younger). I also noted in the match notes that Cilic lost in the 2005 junior tournament here to Donald Young, and then finished second to Young that year in the ITF world junior rankings. Young is currently ranked No. 133; Cilic is No. 20.

Tongue Twisters

Complain if you will about the Ovas and Vics that now dominate professional tennis, but try these Scrabble-rich names on for size:

Nicha Lertpitaksinchai

Rashmi Teltumbde

Karim-Mohamed Maamoun

Natchanok Saenyaukhot

Alexandros-Ferdinandos Georgoudas

All are juniors that were in action on Sunday. Let’s hope they don’t all make it to the big time! Copy desks will commit hara-kiri!

Finally, I was sitting in the stands the other day with Aussie Open tournament director Craig Tiley, who stopped in to catch a bit of the Amer Delic-Novak Djokovic match on Rod Laver Arena. Tiley coached Delic when he a standout at the University of Illinois, and Delic even crashed at Tiley’s place when he left the NCAA coaching ranks to become the TD in Melbourne. I asked Tiley if they had decided to schedule the match on RLA because they could better monitor the hostile Serb and Bosnian fans that had cuased a minor melee the day before. He rightly pointed out that defending champ Djokovic was no odd pick to be playing on top stadium court. But then he quipped, “No, I wanted Amer on here.”