Australia's Lleyton Hewitt will face easily the biggest hurdle of his Australian Open campaign so far when he comes up against Cypriot 15th seed Marcos Baghdatis at Melbourne Park on Saturday night, in a match in which crowd behaviour will also come under focus.
Hewitt has so far had a straightforward passage through the first two rounds, thrashing Belgian Steve Darcis in straight sets
before downing Uzbekistani Denis Istomin in four sets in the second round.
Baghdatis, the big-hitting and popular 2006 finalist, is set to provide a huge threat, having survived a second round five-setter against 2005 champion Russian Marat Safin.
The reaction to Baghdatis from crowd members will prove interesting, after the surfacing yesterday of a 10-month-old YouTube video in which Baghdatis is seen with members of Melbourne's Greek community, who are chanting "Turks out of Cyprus".
The video has angered Melbourne's Turkish Cypriot community.
Baghdatis yesterday responded to the video's public airing by issuing a statement asking to be allowed to concentrate on his tennis, while also defending his actions in "supporting the interest of my country, Cyprus".
In other matches on Saturday, world No.1 Roger Federer will attempt to continue what has so far been a very comfortable move through the
event when he meets Serbian Janko Tipsarevic.
Chilean Fernando Gonzalez, who Federer defeated in last year's final, will play Croatia's Marin Cilic.
Third seeded Serb Novak Djokovic will play unseeded American Sam Querrey, while another unseeded player, Frenchman Sebastien Grosjean, will meet 12th seeded American James Blake.
In the women's draw, sixth seed Anna Chakvetadze will take on Maria Kirilenko in an all-Russian clash.
Another Russian, second seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, will play Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska, while Serbian fourth seed Ana Ivanovic will play Slovenia's Katarina Srebotnik.
On Saturday evening, eighth seed Venus Williams will take on Indian Sania Mirza.
