Third seed Daniil Medvedev was forced to dig deep into his reserves to outlast Hubert Hurkacz 7-6(4) 2-6 6-3 5-7 6-4 in the tightest of quarter-finals on Wednesday and reach the last four of the Australian Open for third time.
The Russian, twice a losing finalist at Melbourne Park, went toe-to-toe with the big Pole for almost four energy-sapping hours on Rod Laver Arena before finally setting up a clash with Carlos Alcaraz or Alexander Zverev.
Ninth seed Hurkacz, who was playing in only his second Grand Slam quarter-final but had a winning career record against Medvedev, twice came from a set down and made the Russian work hard for every single point.