Federer marches into last eight after early scare against Fucsovic

ROGER Federer survived another uncomfortable evening to reach the quarter-finals of the Australian Open.

Having been pushed to the brink by John Millman in a late-night classic on Friday, Federer again dropped the opening set to H u n g a r y ’s M a r t o n Fucsovics.

But this time he did not need a deciding set, scrapping hard i n cool, breezy conditions to win 4-6 6-1 6-2 6-2 after two hours and 11 minutes.

Federer admitted the Millman match had affected him, saying: “It was a tough start, I thought Marton played clean. After Millman, the guy gave me a beatdown from the baseline, so maybe took away my confidence a bit.

“I just had to figure it out. I had a good start to the second set and from there it got a little bit easier.”

Defending champion Novak Djokovic reached his 46th slam quarter-final in confident fashion with a 6-3 6-4 6-4 victory over 14th seed Diego Schwartzman.

After dropping a set to Jan-Lennard Struff in the opening round, Djokovic has begun to look ever more like the player who has won six of the last nine titles here.

The second seed said: “I had a fantastic couple of matches in a row. I felt more confident going through the ball, hitting serves really well.

“Today was a good test because Diego was in form. I stepped out on the court with a clear game plan. I think I kept things pretty much in control in all three sets.”

Next Djokovic will face resurgent 32nd seed Milos Raonic, who is yet to drop a set and is through to the quarter-finals for the fifth time in six years.

Fourth seed Daniil Medvedev became the highest-ranked player to exit the men’s draw, losing in five sets to former champion Stan Wawrinka.

Roger Federer is into the last eight.