After two fine fourth round women's matches, the men's contest between second seed and 4 time champ Novak Djokovic and 15th seed Italian Fabio Fognini had a high standard with which to meet.
Novak began in a style which he personally knew was top class. He took less than a minute to hold serve and a forehand down the line was breathtaking. Novak raced to three break points on the Fognini serve but after slipping and falling he seemed to lose momentum temporarily and Fabio scrambled to hold his serve and it was 1-1.
Djokovic held to love again before setting the blow torch on the Italian serve once more and no mistakes this time - 3-1 to the defending title holder, and yet to drop a point on his own serve.
Fognini made the scoreboard look half decent as he held serve a couple more times not entirely convincingly. Meanwhile Novak absolutely zipped through on each occasion he was asked to deliver, losing just one point for the entire set on his serve. The set was Serbia's 6-3 but that scoreline flattered to deceive how far out of the match Fabio found himself.
The rest of the "match"'was just played because it had to be done. Novak turned up but Fabio was missing for the best part - maybe sticking his head in for the first bit of the last set so he could have his name ticked off on the attendance record.
Djokovic won 6-3 6-0 6-2 but it was not the workout he would have preferred leading into a quarter final with either Wawrinka or Robredo.
There were more games played in both women's matches (29 and 28) which preceded this farce (23) on Rod Laver Arena. And there are those who argue that men should receive greater prize money because they play best of five sets at Grand Slam events. Yeah sure! This case supports that - not
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