MELBOURNE: Fifth seed Andrey Rublev surged into a last-16 clash with Holger Rune at the Australian Open Saturday and thanked opponent Dan Evans for giving him extra energy by donating a banana mid-match.
The Russian crushed the Briton 6-4, 6-2, 6-3 on Margaret Court Arena to make the tournament fourth round for a third time.
He will face Danish teenager Rune for a place in the quarter-finals after the ninth seed survived a nasty fall before recovering to sweep past unseeded Frenchman Ugo Humbert 6-4, 6-2, 7-6 (7/5).
Despite being world number six Rublev, who has won 13 ATP titles, has never been further than the last eight at any Grand Slam.
He moved a step closer by defeating his friend and 25th seed Evans, who threw a banana to him at a changeover when he ran out.
"I didn´t ask him, I asked the ball boy, but Danny asked for bananas earlier and he had two so he just said ´take it´, and I caught it," he said.
"He helped me with some energy, for sure. I have extra for sure because I eat banana," he joked.
Rublev, who was defeated twice in warm-up events ahead of the tournament, said he was growing in confidence as the Grand Slam progressed.
"Every match I´m playing better and better and I´m really happy because at the beginning of the season I lost to a couple of players," he said.
"I lost a bit of confidence, but since the first match (in Melbourne) I´ve been playing really good tennis."
He next meets the dangerous Rune, who shocked Novak Djokovic to clinch his first Masters title in Paris late last year to cap a breakthrough season.
The 19-year-old demolished Humbert despite twisting his ankle as he stretched for a shot early in the match, and breaking the fall with his right wrist which also needed treatment.
"Of course it was painful, but I tried to focus on something else," he said.
"I´m playing on such an amazing stage in the third round of a Grand Slam so I didn´t think about it and I just kept going.
"It was extremely tough, especially after the fall, but I played better than expected, maybe because I relaxed a lot.
"I feel every confident, I really like the conditions here and the support is amazing," he added.