{"id":40128,"date":"2013-01-18T08:22:31","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T06:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=40128"},"modified":"2013-01-20T17:12:27","modified_gmt":"2013-01-20T15:12:27","slug":"novak-through-to-r16-in-melbourne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-through-to-r16-in-melbourne\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak reaches R16 in Melbourne"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Two-time defending champion and top seed Novak Djokovic advanced to the last 16 at the Australian Open<\/a> with a 6-4, 6-3, 7-5 victory over Czech Radek Stepanek (31) in two hours and 22 minutes on Friday afternoon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Djokovic is through to the fourth round at Melbourne Park for the seventh year in a row.<\/p>\n

The 34-year-old Stepanek\u00a0kept pace with Novak for most of the match, but the Serbian star stepped up his game to break the Czech late in each set.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn’t expecting an easy match coming into the third round and playing a seeded player. He loves the big stage. You saw how much fun he had. I also had a lot of fun playing. It was a very entertaining match,\u201d<\/strong> Novak said. \u00a0“It was working well for him today. It was three close sets. I felt that I had much more chances on his serve than he had on my serve. Maybe I could have won the third set earlier. But credit to him, he always played well when he needed to. So it wasn’t an easy match.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Match statistics<\/span>: aces (7-4), double faults (1-3), winners (37-26), unforced errors (19-37), total points won (109-83).<\/p>\n

Next up for the world number one will be no.15 seed Stanislas Wawrinka on Sunday about 20.30 local time (10.30 CET). <\/strong><\/p>\n

The Swiss beat American Sam Querrey 7-6 (6), 7-5, 6-4.<\/p>\n

It will be their 14th career encounter, Novak won the last ten matches (11-2 record).<\/p>\n