ONLY one Australian is left in the Australian Open men’s draw after Briton Jack Draper broke the hearts of the Melbourne Park crowd last night by defeating local hope Aleksandar Vukic. The 15th seed was made to work for his third-consecutive five-set victory, saluting in just under four hours.

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Draper, who now holds a 5-1 career record in five-set matches, came back from two sets to one down and won a pair of tiebreakers to advance, 6-4, 2-6, 5-7, 7-6, 7-6. The 23-year-old leftie will now make his maiden appearance in the fourth round at Melbourne Park, setting up a clash with Carlos Alcaraz.

The result comes after Draper knocked out another crowd favourite in Thanasi Kokkinakis on Wednesday, leaving eighth seed Alex de Minaur as the sole remaining Australian contender. Vukic, who toppled 22nd seed Sebastian Korda in Round 2, could not repeat the feat. 

Draper was quick to acknowledge how Vukic had handled himself against higher-ranked opponents across the tournament, as well as the absurd amount of sets he continues to accrue.

“He played incredible,” Draper said of his opponent post-match. “It was a tough match and we have both played a lot of sets in our first couple of rounds, so I knew it would be tough. There were lots of ebbs and flows and it was great tennis.

“I thought it was done [at 3-1 in the final set] but he came back from the dead and played incredible. We are suffering in the five sets and you sometimes get little bits of energy. “It was a great battle between two competitors going at it and that is what sport is all about.”

Elsewhere on day six, 10-time champion Novak Djokovic and second seed Alexander Zverev progressed in straight sets, along with fellow seeds Tommy Paul and Jiri Lehecka. Alcaraz needed four sets to dispatch Nuno Borges, while Ugo Humbert advanced after Arthur Fils was forced to retire.

Although, arguably the pick of the other contests was played between two unseeded contenders in Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and Jakub Mensik. The latter, a Czech teenager who knocked off sixth seed Casper Ruud, came undone against the Spanish escape artist.

Mensik established a two-set lead but lost the third in a tiebreak and could not recover the momentum from there. Davidovich Fokina is making a habit of such feats having also done so on Wednesday against 29th seed Felix Auger-Aliassime. He moves on to face Paul in the fourth round.

>> DAY FIVE: Medvedev exit headlines day five upsets

AUSTRALIAN OPEN MEN’S RESULTS: DAY SIX

C. Alcaraz [3] def. N. Borges 6-2, 6-4, 6-7, 6-2
N. Djokovic [7] def. T. Machac [26] 6-1, 6-4, 6-4
A. Zverev [2] def. J. Fearnley 6-3, 6-4, 6-4
J. Draper [15] def. A. Vukic 6-4, 2-6, 5-7, 7-6, 7-6
T. Paul [12] def. R. Carballes Baena 7-6, 6-2, 6-0
U. Humbert [14] def. A. Fils [20] 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, 1-0 (RET)
A. Davidovich Fokina def. J. Mensik 3-6, 4-6, 7-6, 6-4, 6-2
J. Lehecka [24] def. B. Bonzi 6-2, 6-3, 6-3