MELBOURNE // Canada’s Milos Raonic fought off a comeback by 2014 champion Stan Wawrinka in a tense five-setter before reaching his second straight Australian Open quarter-final on Monday.
Raonic, who earlier spoke of his grief over a high school shooting in his home country, eliminated the Swiss world No 4 6-4, 6-3, 5-7, 4-6, 6-3 and will face Gael Monfils in the quarters.
The 13th seed, who beat Wawrinka’s fellow Swiss Roger Federer to win this month’s Brisbane International, remains unbeaten this year after his impressive victory in three hours, 44 minutes.
It was Raonic’s first win against the reigning French Open champion in five meetings, and he has not lost a match at tour level since going down to Rafael Nadal in the third round of last year’s Shanghai Masters.
Raonic, looking to take his game to another level under new coach Carlos Moya, was on track for a straight-sets win after four service breaks to lead by two sets in 76 minutes.
But Wawrinka lifted his intensity and took the match to a fifth set.
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“It is more about what always comes down to me, trying to play in my rhythm, dictate and control the centre of the court and I thought like I was able to carry that through today,” Raonic said.
“It’s the next step for me to try and achieve the goals I want to achieve and I am always looking at ways to get better and I am always working for that.”
The match turned in the third set when Wawrinka broke Raonic’s serve in the 11th game and served out to keep the encounter alive.
Raonic started missing more and Wawrinka picked up his serving percentage, and he broke the Canadian in the fifth game of the fourth set and fought off four break points on his serve in the eighth game.
Wawrinka steamed to triple set point in the 10th game and took the match into a fifth set with the momentum shifting his way.
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But in the final set, Wawrinka lost serve in a shaky sixth game when on second break point his forehand drive was just out, giving Raonic a 4-2 lead.
Wawrinka saved a match point in the eighth game but Raonic brought up a further three match points and finally won it with a put-away at the net.
Raonic, who dedicated his third-round win over Viktor Troicki to victims of last week’s school shooting which left four dead, has yet to beat shotmaker Monfils in their two meetings so far.
David Ferrer negated John Isner’s booming serve to beat the towering American 6-4, 6-4, 7-5 and advance to his sixth Australian Open quarter-final on Monday.
The 33-year-old Spaniard, considered one of the best retrievers in the game, nullified the 2.08m tall Isner’s serve and broke once in each set to set up a quarter-final with either Australia’s Bernard Tomic or second seed Andy Murray.
Isner has served the most aces (119) in the tournament and recorded the third fastest serve of 226 kph but with Ferrer’s ability to return and run down balls, needed to put pressure on the eighth-seed’s serve.
The 30-year-old American, however, only had three break-point opportunities the entire match, two of which were in the eighth game in the first set, but he wasted them all and Ferrer was able to win the important points when he needed to.
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