Top seed Rafael Nadal advanced to the third round at the Australian Open in Melbourne with a 6-2, 6-4, 6-2 win over Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis on Thursday.
Nadal will face off Frenchman Gael Monfils on Saturday, 7 pm local time (Saturday 12am PST). The Spaniard is after his 14th Grand Slam title and is undefeated with a 7-0 match record in 2014.
Last year the world No. 1 missed the Australian Open due to a seven-month absence from the tour with injuries and illness. He returned later in the season to win 10 titles and regain the No. 1 ranking.
The Nadal vs Monfils Head to Head stands at 9-2, but both of the Frenchman's wins have come on hard courts in January - at the Qatar Open in 2009 and 2012. They met again at the Qatar Open two weeks ago, with Nadal winning the final 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-2.
In the past four days, the temperature climbed over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). It was the longest heat wave in the Melbourne area in more than 100 years, according to the Herald Sun.
The tournament's extreme heat policy was put into effect during the match when the temperature exceeded 108 Fahrenheit, meaning a brief delay while the roof at Hisense Arena was closed following the completion of the first set.
Roger Federer advanced to the third round by defeating Blaz Kavcic in a victory of a 6-2, 6-1, 7-6 record. He will now face Teymuraz Gabashvili, who upset Fernando Verdasco to reach this stage of the event. Federer leads the head-to-head series 1-0, having defeated the Russian at the 2007 Wimbledon Championships.
On the other hand, three-time Australian Open finalist Andy Murray won the last 23 consecutive points to come from 5-1 down in the third set for a 6-2, 6-2, 7-5 second-round win over French qualifier Vincent Millot.
Murray, the reigning Wimbledon champion, has never lost an ATP-level match to a player ranked outside the top 200. Millot is ranked No. 267 and was playing in just his third Grand Slam event.
Murray was the finalist at Melbourne Park in 2010, 2011 and 2013, losing to Novak Djokovic twice and Roger Federer once.
Most of the tennis play will be aired on ESPN2 offering over 100 hours of play on TV and over 500 hours of play from all seven courts featured on ESPN3. TV and live online coverage will be present throughout the tournament.
On Friday, ESPN2 will get coverage from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., then Tennis Channel will cover from 7 p.m. and run through 9 p.m., at which point ESPN2 will take over for the long haul, until 7 a.m. Saturday morning.
On Saturday, the early round will be covered by ESPN2 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., then swtich over to the Tennis Channel from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. It will be covered by ESPN2 from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. Sunday morning. There's also live streaming from ESPN and the Australian Open website.
WatchESPN will offer live online coverage for both ESPN and ESPN2 online; viewers can watch the games using the WatchESPN app which can be streamed on tablets, Smartphone's, Apple TV, Roku and Xbox live.
Check out the Australia Open 2014 Schedule of play here and live score here.
