This is the kind of match that the Australian Open epic.  Wawrinka has been around 20s his entire career peaking briefly in the top 10.  With all players coming back from training, it’s time for players in that next tier to make that push.

When the draw came out, everyone looked at Murray on Federer’s half and thought Djokovic was the luckier of the top 2 seeds.  But, after tonight’s marathon with Djokovic staring at the brink of defeat, Djokovic played clutch tennis, from a 40-15 lead on Wawrinka’s serve, to then save two match points, then an amazing passing shot to break and take the match.

Wawrinka has always been one of those players that is supremely talented, but just not steady enough, or powerful enough.  He has a great backhand.  His serve is pretty good.  And credit to Wawa to fight for the win.

Wawrinka started off well with a 6-1 first set, and then, he pushed to a 4-1 lead, but Djokovic turned it around to take the second set, 7-5.  From that point, it seemed Djokovic would take over.  He won the third set, 6-4.  But Wawrinka continued to play well in the fourth set, despite hamstring issues.  Wawa took a lead in the tiebreak but needed an amazing forehand winner to clinch that set.

From then on, it was hold after hold after hold.  Wawrinka had chances to break early in the fifth set, but Djokovic held tight.  From then on, a combination of Djokovic struggling on return, and Wawrinka hitting big shots, neither player had to deal with close games, and it was reminiscent of the Isner-Mahut match.  Every changeover seemed to make one think that Wawrinka wouldn’t have enough in the tank, that he was slowing down, and might have to pack it in, but he kept coming up with big shots, and enough Djokovic errors, to hold.

Even the 11-10 game looked like it was heading the Swiss man’s way.  He had a 40-15 lead, but eventually went to deuce.  Djokovic tied it to deuce.  Wawrinka hit a big serve to save the first match point.  Then, in the second match point, Wawrinka hit a huge backhand down the line to stay in the match.  Even the last match point had Wawrinka hitting two aggressive shots until Djokovic hit a bloop forehand off the second aggressive shot.  Wawrinka sliced the ball crosscourt, approached the net, only to see Djokovic thread an angle and take the fifth set 12-10.

The match became the longest of the tournament exceeding the Kavcic-Duckworth match and marked another 5 hour match for Djokovic.

Djokovic doesn’t have it easy after this.  Earlier in the day, Tomas Berdych continued his roll by beating South African, Kevin Anderson, in straight sets, the third in a tiebreak, 15-13.  The score: 63 62 76.  If he gets past Berdych, he may face the hardest working man in tennis, David Ferrer.

Earlier in the day, Kei Nishikori took on David Ferrer.  At the start, Nishikori seemed to be hitting big, and making Ferrer work hard.  After a grueling four games, with many chances to break, Nishikori found himself only even.  As Ferrer continued to work hard, Nishikori became impatient, began piling up the errors, and Ferrer had won the mental battle.  The second set saw Nishikori misfiring all over the place and the Spaniard winning easily.  Nishikori appeared to struggle with his knee, as well as his consistency.

By the third set, Nishikori was able to relax, and his shots began to flow better.  Even so, Ferrer won the points he needed to and secured the match in straight sets: 62 61 64.

Finally, Nicolas Almagro joined these 3 players in the quarterfinals when Janko Tipsarevic, who had played back to back 5-setters, beating Lacko and Benneteau, lacked the energy to play Almagro and retired in the second set.

From the top half of the draw, Djokovic plays Berdych while Ferrer takes on fellow Spaniard Nicolas Almagro.  The higher seed in both cases have great records against the lower, but Djokovic has to recover from this five-setter while Ferrer should be pretty fresh.