Roger Federer isn’t the best singer, and he admits it

The Swiss ace emerged victorious 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 in the match, which lasted for three hours and 23 minutes.

Murray was knocked out earlier in the fourth round.

Meanwhile Roger Federer played the sort of tennis to suggest he could yet win an 18th grand slam title as he annihilated Tomas Berdych.

Federer hit some classic one-handed backhand winners, including one that earned a hearty applause from the great Rod Laver – sitting in the crowd at the stadium named in his honor – in the second set.

A amusing episode happened during Stan Wawrinka’s match, when a fan of the crowd exclaimed: “Go, Roger!”

But for the legions of Federer fans the world over, the sheer joy of being able to watch the Swiss ace in action once again, will certainly feel like a Grand Slam victory in itself. “Great energy. Even deep into the fourth I thought, “Yeah, fifth, here we go, no problem for me”.

Andy Murray has also started convincingly and the world number one will be the strong favourite against Germany’s 50th-ranked Mischa Zverev.

If Murray and surprise package Dan Evans both go through, Britain will have two men in the Australian Open quarter-finals for the first time in 30 years.

Nishikori stormed to 4-0 up in the first set and held on in the tie-break but the Japanese was on the back foot thereafter, particularly after needing to take treatment on a back injury in the fifth.

Raonic’s victory, and the likely success of Rafa Nadal today – he leads Gael Monfils by two sets to one at the time of writing – sees the outright victor market very open indeed, with four players priced between [4.1] and [5.4].

The Federer Express ain’t slowing down folks!

Women’s champion Angelique Kerber will also seek to keep improving her game after she ironed out some wrinkles with her easy victory over Kristyna Pliskova to set up a fourth-round clash with American Coco Vandeweghe.

With the match at deuce, Nishikori’s back-hand bounced off the sideline and looked to be flying out of Federer’s reach.

However, Federer was set to take centre stage at Melbourne Park for more reasons than one.

Nishikori saved the first and fired a huge serve on the next that should have settled the argument. The Russian 25-year-old, 11 years Williams’ junior, is already in rare air having never made the quarter-finals at the Open.

He had 40 winners and won 95 percent of points when he got his first serve into play.