At the Australian Open, Baghdatis beat Italian Paolo Lorenzi in the opening round and 17th seed David Ferrer in the five-sets second round. This marked his second career victory after being down two sets to none, while suffering from leg cramping in the final game. He faced Lleyton Hewitt in the third round, a rematch of the same tournament and round exactly two years before. This time, however, a right shoulder injury forced Baghdatis to retire just 56 minutes into the match after trailing 0–6, 2–4. After this, his ranking dipped slightly to No. 34 (on January 1). After deciding not to defend his quarterfinal points at the SA Tennis Open in Johannesburg, his ranking dropped 2 places to no. 36 (on January 8).