Japan's Kei Nishikori has caused the upset of the Australian Open men's draw to date, ousting No.6 seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in a five-set epic to set up a debut Grand Slam quarter-final against No.4 seed Andy Murray.
And it was a dirty day for the French contingent at Melbourne Park with Tsonga followed out the door later on Monday by his 17th-seeded compatriot Richard Gasquet, who barely gave a yelp in his straight-sets defeat to Spanish No.5 seed David Ferrer.
The result means Ferrer could go head-to-head with the world No.1 and top seed for the second year in a row in the quarter-finals at Melbourne Park, provided Serbian Novak Djokovic sees off Australian veteran Lleyton Hewitt on Monday evening on centre court.
The nature of the wins of Nishikori and Murray could not have been more contrasting with the Japanese No.24 enduring a three-hour-and-30-minute torture test in the Melbourne heat, while Murray progressed in just 48 minutes after his opponent, unseeded Kazakh Mikhail Kukushkin, withdrew in the third set.
Nishikori's 2-6 6-2 6-1 3-6 6-3 win was his second five-set victory of the tournament and gives him a shot at Murray, who has dropped just one set for the tournament so far and has won the only previous encounter between the two.
Nishikori fought back from a poor first set, where he was broken twice by the Frenchman to level things at one-set apiece after a fast start to the second set.
He broke Tsonga in the fourth and sixth games of the third set to get himself on top, but Tsonga fought back with an early break in the fourth.
Nishikori had a chance to level the set when he had Tsonga 0-40 on his serve in the seventh game, but he let him off the hook and allowed him to level at two sets all.
However, Nishikori broke Tsonga to love in the fourth game of the decider and while Tsonga had two chances to break back, the Frenchman was unable to get things back on level terms and became the highest seed of the tournament to date to bow out.
Murray, meanwhile, had ripped through the first two sets and conceded just two games but when he broke the Kukushkin serve in the opening game of the third to take a 6-1 6-1 1-0 lead, the world No.92 called it quits.
The reason for his retirement was officially a left hip flexor injury, but fatigue surely would have been an issue with Kukushkin coming off consecutive five-set epics.
Murray broke to love in the opening game before breaking again in the third game. He gave one back the very next game, but it mattered little as he reeled off the next three to close out the set.
The second set followed a similar pattern with Murray again racing to an early lead before dropping his serve in the third game.
But that would be the Kazakh's final game for the match as Murray breezed through the remainder of the set with the encounter looking more like a training drill than a clash in the fourth round of a Grand Slam tournament.
When Kukushkin dropped his serve in the opening game of the third set, he decided he'd endured enough pain and called an early end to the match.
Murray is through to his 11th Grand Slam quarter-final, looking to make it