Big guns look shoe-ins
Betting tips 
/ Andy Morris / 20 January 2012 / Leave a comment Bet Now
The second seed has not dropped a set so far, and it would be a surprise if he did so against the Slovakian.
Andy Morris expects two stars who have thrilled the Australian Open crowd over the years to breeze through their third-round matches on Rod Laver Arena on Friday.
Rafael Nadal takes on Lukas Lacko of Slovakia in the first match, before Roger Federer plays Croatia's Ivo Karlovic.
Lacko has already surpassed his previous best in Melbourne, beating Donald Young to make it into the third round for the first time.
Ranked 119 in the world, he had to come through three qualifying rounds to make the main draw and looked to be heading out in the first round when he lost the first two sets to 28th seed Ivan Ljubicic.
Nadal has lost in the quarter-finals the last two years, following his 2009 win. The second seed has not dropped a set so far, and it would be a surprise if he did so against the Slovakian.
Federer has won the Australian Open four times, most recently in 2010. The third seed for the tournament this year, he faces a tougher test than Nadal. Karlovic reached the semis here two years ago, and was ranked as high as 14 at one time.
Aussie Bernard Tomic, having beaten 22nd seed Fernando Verdasco and American Sam Querrey, now faces 13th seed Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine.
Tomic will be encouraged by the fact that Dolgopolov has been taken to five sets in both his matches so far. He had to come from two sets down in his first round victory against Australian Greg Jones.
