Kei Nishikori says he was surprised by how deep he dug to beat Pablo Carreno Busta and reach the quarter-finals of the Australian Open. For the third time in four matches in Melbourne, Nishikori was pushed all the way on Monday, coming from two sets down to seal his progress.
Carreno Busta played some of his best tennis and will feel unlucky having lost out in not one but two tie-breaks on Monday.
Winning the first would have seen the Spaniard into the quarter-finals for the first time in Australia but instead, it is Nishikori who goes on to face top seed Novak Djokovic courtesy of his 6-7 (8-10) 4-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 7-6 (10-8).
Djokovic was another who did not have it all his own way, battling past Daniil Medvedev 6-4 6-7 (5-7) 6-2 6-3.
His relative lack of match action could, however, give him an advantage in the last eight and Nishikori himself admitted that he was surprised by how deep he had to go to get the win. “I don’t even know how I came back,” Nishikori said. “But [I’m] very happy to win today. “There were many tough moments. I just tried to fight through every point, and luckily I got five points in a row [in the] last tie-break.”
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