Djokovic survives five-set thriller at Australian Open

A Roger Federer masterclass was overshadowed only by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s brilliant drop shot and two magical moments from Gilles Simon against Novak Djokovic.

Djokovic, a five-time champion in Australia and last year’s victor, advanced to a quarter-final meeting with Kei Nishikori after needing four hours, 32 minutes to get past Simon.

Djokovic, who booked his 27th successive quarter-final at the grand slams, will now meet seventh seeded Japanese Kei Nishikori, the man who beat him in the 2014 US Open semi-finals.

France’s Gilles Simon has been a solid member of the world’s top 20 for much of the past seven years, but the fact that he had lost eight straight meetings with Djokovic just further illustrated the fact that he is not a player blessed with the weapons to worry the very best.

“I made a lot of unforced errors today but nevertheless he was always fighting”.

While carrying out his post-match television interview, a spectator in the crowd screamed, “No more drop shots”. In terms of a level that I’ve played, it’s [a] match to forget for me. Simon frustrated Djokovic with his defensive play, saving all 11 break-point opportunities in the second set before dominating the tiebreaker.

The five-time champion Djokovic and the pesky Simon played plenty of long rallies – the longest of which was 37 strokes.

The sixth-seeded Berdych only converted four of 22 break-point opportunities against his Spanish opponent, finally prevailing 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 in three hours, 18 minutes.

To give an idea of the magnitude of the upset that nearly was – and an insight as to the world-beating Simon was talking about pre-match – the win moved Djokovic’s win-loss record to 82-5 since he won the Australian Open here a year ago.

In the end, Djokovic had enough in the tank to win this stellar match 6-3, 6-7 (1), 6-4, 4-6, 6-3. The last time she managed a win was at the WTA Tour Championships in 2004.

“Well, gosh, I didn’t know she was here, I feel honored to be able to play in front of her”, Williams said when told Court was in the stands, then looked up to the VIP area and added: “Thank you”. “The fact that I’ve played this many quarterfinals in a row definitely pleases me”.

The world number one had missed the mark repeatedly with his attempts at that shot – and replied to his critic: “I hate to admit it, but you’re absolutely right”.

The persistent Frenchman broke Djokovic in the ninth game and took the match into a fifth set amid another flurry of Djokovic errors. Williams had an easy victory against Margarita Gasparyan, taking the game 6-2 6-1, but Sharapova had a tougher time against Belinda Bencic, squeezing out a well-fought 7-5 7-5. Djokovic, curiously out of sorts, simply couldn’t find the victor to subdue his stubborn foe, and Simon was all but gifted parity. “So that’s just been my thing”, she said. “I got myself into the quarterfinal of a Grand Slam”.

Berdych lost the first set on Margaret Court Arena but outlasted Agut to win 4-6 6-4 6-3 1-6 6-3.