Commentary: Native son Bernard Tomic is a AO live wire

Ooops.

While I snored the night away, young Tomic rallied to a stunning 4-6, 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-2, 7-5 victory over the 22^nd-seeded Verdasco in a match lasting just over four hours.

He did so despite being outaced 8-0 in the fifth set, taking advantage of the older Verdasco’s 20 unforced errors and five double faults.

Tomic, the athletic 19-year-old that he is, also approached the net nine times in the final set, hitting seven winners.

For the match, he won 20 net approaches in 27 tries and broke Verdasco, whose star appears to be fading fast, seven times.

My previous rant vanished like last night’s dreams, replaced by the vision of Tomic as a very live wire in this field of 128.

From here, Tomic draws American Sam Querrey, who is slowly slogging his way back from last year’s injury. After that, it’s a likely matchup with fellow wunderkind Alexandr Dolgopolov, seeded 13^th and probably just happy to be here after he had to rally past Australian Greg Jones in five sets on Sunday.

If Tomic slips by Dolgopolov, he would reach the fourth round of a major for the first time in his career, and things would get really, really interesting for the home continent, as he would likely run headlong into Roger Federer, the tournament’s third seed.

Australia hasn’t had a native winner of its own Slam since Chris O’Neil did so in 1978 when she became the only woman of the Open Era to win a major while unseeded.

The last male Aussie to take the Open was Mark Edmonson in 1976. He was ranked 212^th in the world at the time of his victory.

Tomic is a good deal better than that at No. 38 in the world, and has never played Querrey, but is 0-3 against Dolgopolov and 0-1 against Federer.