By Nick Georgandis

(January 20, 2012) The bigger they are ... well, you know the rest.

World No. 3 Roger Federer, a four-time Australian Open champion, moved into the fourth round by gritting out a 7-6(6), 7-5, 6-3 win over Ivo Karlovic on Friday.
The 6-foot, 10-inch Karlovic, the tallest man to ever play pro tennis, had a potential set point in the first-set tie-breaker before Federer brought him to the net with one shot and lobbed a second over his head.

Federer reaches the tournament's fourth round for a staggering 10th straight year. Two more wins will see him reach at least the semifinals for an eighth straight campaign as he searches for Grand Slam title No. 18.

To reach the quarterfinals, he'll need to take out one of the rising stars of the game, facing either 13th seeded Alexandr Dolgopolov or Australia's own Bernard Tomic in the fourth round.
Karlovic recorded 15 aces, but also racked up a miserable 35 unforced errors to just 13 from Federer, who scored nine aces of his own, and broke the big Croatian four times.

Federer's biggest rival, Rafael Nadal, barely blinked in his third-round win, a 6-2, 6-4, 6-2 smashing of Slovakia's Lukas Lacko.

Nadal hit 85% of his first serves for winners and feasted on 30 unforced errors by Lacko to cruise to the fourth round.

It wasn't a good morning for the tallest men on tour. Six-foot, eight-inch South African Kevin Anderson lost a pair of tie-breakers, then fell apart in a 7-6(5), 7-6(1), 6-1 loss to seventh seeded Tomas Berdych.

The 6-foot-5 inch Berdych nearly matched Anderson ace for ace, compiling 14 to the South African's 16, but was superior on winners, unforced errors and first-serve percentage, not to mention break points and net approaches to move into the fourth round against 10th-seeded Nicolas Almagro.

The clay court specialist was impressive in a 7-6(2), 6-2, 6-4 victory over 21st-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka. Almagro is through to his third staight fourth-round appearance at the Australian Open, easily his best non-clay major.