Baghdatis and His Fans Set Sights on Roddick

Beachwear trumped Melbourne’s Greek and Cypriot community.

At least in Andy Roddick’s mind.

One of the more anticipated fourth-round matches at the Australian Open will be between the second-seeded Roddick and the charismatic Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus, who reached the final 16 for the second year in a row here when he beat German qualifier Denis Gremelmayr, 6-2, 6-1, 6-2.

Baghdatis has a large, passionate group of supporters here, including 21 cousins, and after his win today, they traveled to Rod Laver Arena, where Roddick was crushing French qualifier Julien Benneteau, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2. They gave Roddick a hint of what could come in the next round. Think Liverpool soccer fans suddenly showing up at a tennis match.

“That’s OK,” Roddick said. “I think it’s good. I’ve seen the highlights. Credit to them, they even came to heckle me a little bit today at the end of my match. I said, ‘Man, you guys can’t show your hand before the end of it.’ ”

Roddick’s fan base looked primed for the beach on another 90-plus degree day at Melbourne Park. He joked about it during his on-court TV interview with Jim Courier.

“I have half-naked women and [Baghdatis] has a bunch of men,” Roddick said. “I’d rather have a dinner with my cheering section.”

No wonder Roddick was in such a good mood. He has needed just 4 hours 54 minutes on the court to complete his three victories and Benneteau was the second qualifier he has played in the tournament.

Benneteau, whose only previous meeting with Roddick was a straight-set loss in Toronto in 2004, said he thought Roddick’s backhand was “much better” than two years ago.

Conditions became more difficult as the day progressed and at 3:30 p.m. officials opted not to start any new matches on the outside courts, implementing the extreme heat rule. Those matches in progress were allowed to continue, which included top-seeded Lindsay Davenport’s third-round match on Rod Laver Arena.

Davenport lost the first set but had little trouble after taking a break before the third against 18-year-old Maria Kirilenko of Russia, winning, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, in 2 hours 19 minutes. Davenport’s difficulties resulted from a high number of unforced errors (42).

“It was a tough match,” said Davenport in her on-court interview. “Luckily, got some clouds here in the third set. She’s a great young player and I really had a tough match.”

Kirilenko needed an injury timeout after losing the first two games of the third set for treatment of her left foot, and Davenport appeared to tweak her ankle in the middle of the third on the often treacherous Rebound Ace surface.

Earlier, fourth-seeded Maria Sharapova of Russia had her easiest match here so far, beating Jelena Kostanic of Croatia, 6-0, 6-1, in 68 minutes in the third round, perhaps setting up a rematch of her semifinal loss last year to Serena Williams, in which she squandered three match points.

Though Serena still needed to get past Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia, Sharapova said during her on-court interview that she would “get my revenge.”

Three-time champion Martina Hingis of Switzerland won her second-round match on Thursday, beating Emma Laine of Finland, 6-1, 6-1, and will next play Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic, who took out No. 5 Mary Pierce of France.

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Alex Bogomolov Jr. said he planned on appealing his $4,500 fine, which resulted from a few choice words directed at the chair umpire during his fiery first-round upset of No. 9 Fernando Gonzalez of Chile. The players had appeared close to coming to blows before the umpire, Pascal Maria, intervened.

An exhausted Bogomolov lost the first seven games in his second-round match on Thursday against Paul-Henri Mathieu of France and Mathieu won, 6-0, 7-6 (5), 6-2. Bogomolov said that he thought Gonzalez tried to hit him with the ball, but barely missed. Maria said the ball hit Bogomolov.

“I just said, ‘Are you ... serious?’ That was the first one,” Bogomolov said. “In the fourth set, I was pretty upset about the tiebreaker.... I told [Maria], we need to get together to watch the tape and if the ball hit me, I’ll apologize, and if it didn’t, I get to call you a ... “

And so, two unprintable words apparently equaled $4,500.