Tennis-Zverev reaches last eight with easy win over Lajovic

German sixth seed Alexander Zverev used his powerful serve to good effect to overcome 23rd seed Dusan Lajovic of Serbia 6-4 7-6(5) 6-3 on Sunday and reach the Australian Open quarter-finals. Zverev needed five sets to beat Lajovic in each of their two previous meetings at the French Open, but the 23-year-old was in a more ruthless mood on Margaret Court Arena and sealed victory with his 15th ace.

German sixth seed Alexander Zverev used his powerful serve to good effect to overcome 23rd seed Dusan Lajovic of Serbia 6-4 7-6(5) 6-3 on Sunday and reach the Australian Open quarter-finals.

Zverev needed five sets to beat Lajovic in each of their two previous meetings at the French Open, but the 23-year-old was in a more ruthless mood on Margaret Court Arena and sealed the victory with his 15th ace. The German got 72% of his first serves in and racked up 44 winners to dominate the 30-year-old Lajovic throughout the match to register his 50th win in majors.

Lajovic started strongly by breaking the German early to take a 2-0 lead in the opening set but Zverev broke back in the next game and did not look back. "Today was a pretty good match, much colder than the other days," Zverev said in his on-court interview.

"I'm very happy with a win and it could have gone either way early on. It wasn't easy." Next up for Zverev will be either world number one Novak Djokovic, an eight-time winner at Melbourne Park, or Canadian 14th seed Milos Raonic.

"I'm in the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam, so I've gotta be doing something well," Zverev said. "I'm looking forward to what's ahead, the toughest matches I think are still ahead of me, with Novak and Raonic looking for a spot in the quarter-finals against me.

"I'm definitely looking forward to what's ahead."