Novak Djokovic through to Australian Open quarter-finals but Dominic Thiem knocked out in shock

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Malik Ouzia @MalikOuzia_14 February 2021

Novak Djokovic made light of injury concerns to reach the Australian Open quarter-finals with a 7-6(4) 4-6 6-1 6-4 over Canada’s Milos Raonic

Djokovic had struggled with a side muscle problem in the previous round’s five set win over Taylor Fritz, which had cast doubt about his participation in the rest of the tournament, but he remained on course to defend his title on Sunday. 

Fourteenth seed Raonic had never previously taken a set off Djokovic in three previous Grand Slam meetings so when he snatched the second set a surprise looked possible.

But Djokovic, bidding for a record-extending ninth title in Melbourne, responded by raising his level and improving his record over Raonic to 12-0.

The Serb will face Alexander Zverev for a place in the semi-finals after the German beat Dusan Lajovic in straight sets, but US Open champion Dominic Thiem is out after he was thrashed 6-4 6-4 6-0 by Grigor Dimitrov.

The third seed, who came back from two sets down to beat Nick Kyrgios in a third round battle on Friday night, looked out of sorts from the beginning of the contest and made an uncharacteristic 41 unforced errors.

AFP via Getty Images

“A combination of some little physical issues, plus a real bad day, plus the fact that he’s a great player ... a result like that can happen,” Thiem said.

“I’m not a machine, sometimes I would like to be, but there are really, really bad days. As soon as you’re not 100% at this level, then results like this come up, and that’s exactly what happened today.”

Additional reporting by Reuters. 

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