Novak Djokovic equalled Roger Federer’s record by making his way to the 58th Grand Slam quarter-final after beating Adrian Mannarino 6-0, 6-0, 6-3 in the round of 16 encounter of the ongoing Australian Open 2024 at the Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne, on Sunday.
The world No 1 achieved this by being the first player to secure a 'triple bagel' victory at the tournament when he won the initial 13 games against Adrian Mannarino.
The Frenchman appeared greatly relieved when he finally got on the board in the second game of the third set, but Djokovic, participating in his 73rd major tournament, cruised to a 6-0 6-0 6-3 victory.
Although Djokovic began the tournament battling illness and surviving two lengthy matches, he is now displaying ominous form, although he still became irritated by the crowd at times.
“The best sets I've played in a while,' the Serbian said after the match. “I really wanted to lose that game in the third set because the tension was building up so much in the stadium. I needed to get that out of the way and refocus on what I needed to do to finish the match
“I served very well. In the moments when I needed to come up with the first serve, I did. All in all, great performance.
“The last couple of days has been really good so it's going in a positive direction health wise, tennis wise, so I'm really happy.”
Djokovic will now face 12th seed Taylor Fritz, who recorded a thumping win over last year's finalists Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Fritz went into the match with a 0-11 record against top-10 players at Grand Slams but came away with a 7-6 (3) 5-7 6-3 6-3 triumph to reach the quarter-finals in Melbourne for the first time.
He must accomplish another feat if he is to progress further, having lost all eight previous encounters with Djokovic, including a painful five-set defeat in the third round three years ago when the Serbian suffered an abdominal injury mid-match.
Cheered on by Melbourne's huge Greek population, Tsitsipas enjoyed the best results of his career at the Australian Open but he couldn’t reach the semi-finals for the first time since 2020.
