By Nick Georgandis
TennisNow.com
@Mark Peterson/ Corleve

On a day when Australia's best hope for a Grand Slam was shocked out of the third round by a 20-year-old, teenager Bernard Tomic gave Oz hope of brighter things to come by giving No. 1 Rafael Nadal his most lively challenge of the third round, losing 6-2, 7-5, 6-3.

Nadal had barely broken a sweat in advancing through the first two rounds, but Tomic made him work a bit harder, acing the Spaniard 11 times. Nadal committed four double faults, but also broke Tomic seven times and committed far fewer unforced errors (32 to 49).

"First of all just I congratulate him," Nadal said of his young opponent. "I think he's improving every year a lot, he's very young and if he keeps improving like this, he's going to have big chances to be in the top very soon."

The match was a strong parallel to Nadal's first experience at the Open, playing as a 17-year-old in 2004 and reaching this same third round before losing to Australia's Lleyton Hewitt. Nadal now takes on Marin Cilic.

Joining Nadal in the fourth round are Jurgen Melzer, who won by retirement when Marcos Baghdatis couldn't go on in their third-round contest. Melzer was leading 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-1, 4-3 when a right finger injury that made it feel like "electricity going through my hand."

It's Melzer's first time in the fourth round at Australia, and continues the roll he started by reaching the semifinals at the French Open a year ago, followed by the fourth round at the US Open and an upset of Nadal at Shanghai.

Melzer returns to action in the fourth round against Scotland's Andy Murray.

Robin Soderling had one of the easier matches of the third round, dispensing of Jan Hernych 6-3, 6-1, 6-4. The big Swede out-aced his opponent 10-0 and hit 84 percent of his first serves for winners in wrapping things up in just under two hours. Soderling will take on Alexandr Dolgopolov, the upset winner over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.