It dawns on them that this is ridiculous

MELBOURNE, Australia -- Twenty-four-hour party people.

Make that almost 26 1/2 hours at the Australian Open, now becoming known as the (almost) 24/7 Grand Slam. In a span of 26 1/2 hours, three matches in Rod Laver Arena qualified as epics, or near epics, starting with Philipp Kohlschreiber’s five-set win against Andy Roddick, continuing with Roger Federer’s victory (10-8 in the fifth set) over Janko Tipsarevic and finishing with Lleyton Hewitt’s marathon against Marcos Baghdatis.

Incredibly, Hewitt completed his five-set win today, at 4:34 a.m. Melbourne time, the latest finish in Grand Slam history. Forget Breakfast at Wimbledon, how about Breakfast at Melbourne Park?

It was breakfast time -- Saturday morning -- in Los Angeles, and getting close to lunch in New York.

It all got dicey because the day match between Federer and Tipsarevic turned into a night match, finishing at about 9:15 p.m. Then neither Venus Williams nor Sania Mirza -- playing in the first night match -- was willing to move to the second show court, Vodafone Arena.

For putting on Hewitt-Baghdatis at almost midnight -- making the U.S. Open, often criticized for excess, look almost restrained in comparison -- sleep-deprived officials faced tough questioning.

A fair point, however, was raised about playing tennis at such an “unearthly” hour.

“You have international players here,” tournament referee Wayne McKewen said. “The time difference. We get players coming in asking to be put on late.”

Reporter: “It doesn’t matter. The time they’re going on is midnight. To me, it’s absolutely daft having players starting a match in a Grand Slam tournament at midnight.”

Tournament director Craig Tiley: “I don’t think we went on at midnight.”

So, give him that point. It was 11:49 p.m.

Had the match between Williams and Mirza gone to a third set -- Williams won in two -- Hewitt and Baghdatis would have been rescheduled for Sunday.

Hewitt, who won 6-3 in the fifth, ended up doing his post-match news conference at about 5:30 a.m.

“Yeah, it was a strange night,” he said.

And morning.

Yank watch

And so, James Blake is the only American left in the men’s singles draw. Sam Querrey of Thousand Oaks lost to No. 3 Novak Djokovic of Serbia, 6-3, 6-1, 6-3, in the third round on Saturday, and Vince Spadea lost to No. 5 David Ferrer of Spain, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2, today in the third round.

Serena Williams defeated Nicole Vaidisova, 6-3, 6-4, today.

“Things just kind of turned around on me,” Querrey said. “I got a little flustered. It seemed like I couldn’t get comfortable out there.”

Even Djokovic’s posture was daunting. “He’s always upright,” Querrey said. “He looks very confident out there. It’s intimidating to play against him.”

Quote of the day

“EleVen is about being your best, so it’s above 10,” said Venus Williams, referring to her clothing line, not making a subtle Spinal Tap reference. “And also, it’s part of my address growing up in Compton: 1177. So it has double meaning.”

--

lisa.dillman@latimes.com

--

ON THE WEB

Serena Williams, ranked No. 7, had a tough match later in the day today against No. 12 Nicole Vaidisova of the Czech Republic, and three other high-seeded players were also in action: No. 2 Rafael Nadal of Spain against No. 23 Paul-Henri Mathieu of France, and No. 4 Nikolay Davydenko against No. 14 Mikhail Youzhny in a battle of Russians on the men’s side, and the third-seeded woman, Jelena Jankovic of Serbia, against Casey Dellacqua of Australia.

For results go to www.latimes.com/sports.