Tomas Berdych brushed aside Bernard Tomic in straight sets this morning to advance to the quarter-finals of the Australian Open.
The seventh seed set up a potential meeting with Rafael Nadal in the last eight by recording a 6-2 7-6 6-2 victory at the Margaret Court Arena, taking a little over two hours to see off his opponent.
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It was a perfect start to proceedings for Berdych, who barely broke into a sweat by taking a one-set lead inside 28 minutes.
He raced into a four-game advantage before cutting short Tomic's comeback bid by emerging as 6-2 winner.
However, the local favourite, who has never progressed past the fourth round, ensured that the second set was markedly more competitive than the opener, with the pair holding their serve throughout regulation to win six games apiece and force a tiebreak.
The Czech cruised into a 5-1 lead and, despite a brief resurgence from Tomic to move within two points, Berdych held on to win the tiebreak 7-3 and go two sets ahead.
There was no looking back from that stage as Berdych, a semi-finalist in this event 12 months ago, held serve throughout the third and final set to ease through, simply proving too much for Tomic, who failed to recover from a slow start to the contest.
Next up for the world number seven is a meeting with either Nadal or Kevin Anderson, with a place in the last four of the season's first Grand Slam up for grabs.
Shane Callaghan
