HE MIGHT be the owner of 24 Grand Slam trophies, 10 of which are Australian Opens, but former world number one Novak Djokovic is still achieving career milestones, with his family joining him for the first time Down Under to watch him defeat French veteran Gael Monfils for a 20th time.

The opponents’ combined age sits at 75, but the pair have shown their longevity. While Djokovic has clearly been more successful over the journey, Monfils is ever the entertainer. However in their Round of 16 match at the Brisbane International, it was the Serbian top seed who played that role post-match, dedicating his celebration to his children.

Following his 6-3 6-3 triumph over Monfils, Djokovic pulled out the double musical celebration, with his familiar violin, followed by the saxophone. When asked about it, he said he was just following orders.

“Both of my children told me to have two different kinds of celebration,” Djokovic said. “My daughter told me to keep going with violin if I win and my son told me to play the saxophone, so I tried to incorporate both kind of celebrations.

“It’s first time for me to have my family Down Under. “It’s a very long trip but they came here to be with me to support me and spending a lot of great quality time together off the court, so my heart is full and it allows me to play my best tennis.”

Djokovic won 76 and 71 per cent of his first and second serve points, and saved the only break point he faced. However on Monfils’ serve, he converted all three of his chances to book his place in the quarter finals.

“We’ve been playing for many years. I know Gael since I was 15, he was 16. We played quite a few matches in junior level and professional circuit. I’ve had a good score against him over the years but you know, we’ve had some incredible battles on different surfaces,” Djokovic said.

“He’s one of the best if not the best athlete in our sport that I have seen over the years. Incredible agility, flexibility, speed. Such a great player to watch, so exciting, a great character, great charisma, he attracts many fans around the world to the tennis stadium. Tonnes of respect for him and hopefully we can play some more before we both retire.”

Form a player he has faced for more than two decades to now taking one a new opponent in American Reilly Opelka. The towering serve bot won in typical fashion with 25 aces in a 7-6 7-6 triumph over Italian Matteo Arnaldi.

In the other two results, French serve bot Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard smashed his way past fourth seed American Frances Tiafoe with 20 of his own aces to now take on fellow up-and-comer Jakub Mensik in the quarter finals of the ATP 250 event. Mensik got the better of Serbian lucky loser Dusan Lajovic, 6-3 6-2.