Raonic, the Canadian 13th seed, came out on top of a tense five-setter with Wawrinka after letting slip a two sets lead.
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Fourth seed Wawrinka had reached at least the quarter-finals of the last six grand slams and when he battled back to level after dropping the opening two sets on Monday it looked as though that run would continue.
“I just credit the win to perseverance, I had opportunities even in the set I lost”, Raonic said, “I told myself just to keep creating chances and hopefully they will go your way”.
The 25-year-old Canadian is into the quarterfinals for the fourth time at the majors, including a loss here last year to Djokovic.
Gael Monfils had a 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4) win over Andrei Kuznetsov to reach the quarterfinals for the first time in 11 trips to the Australian Open.
An agitated Murray yelled and berated himself, and had trouble at times before winning 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (4) Monday in a scrappy match against the last Australian in the draw.
The 2014 champion was expected by many to go deep this year in Melbourne, but his campaign was brought to an end by Canada’s Raonic in a five-set thriller-the final result was 6-4, 6-3, 5-7, 4-6, 6-3.
In other fourth round matches, eighth seed David Ferrer ousted America’s John Isner in straight sets while second seed Andy Murray beat Bernard Tomic 6-4, 6-4, 7-6.
Raonic advanced to the quarter-finals after a thrilling five set victory against the 2014 Australian Open champion Stan Wawrinka in his round-of-16 match.
Their fourth-round encounter, in a quarter that has already seen higher-ranked seeds No5 Rafael Nadal and No11 Kevin Anderson beaten in the first round, proved to be one of the matches of the tournament so far, a three-and-three-quarter hours dominated by Raonic in the first two sets before Wawrinka fought back to take the match to a fifth set. It’s been a stressful few days.
“Do I wish I was more like somebody else?”
“If the news was not positive, then, no, there was absolutely no chance I would have kept playing”, Murray said. “I’ll try to refocus”, he said.
“If you allow him to dictate play, he has an extremely accurate forehand and he can make you do a lot of running”.
“It’s going to be tough”, Ferrer said of the challenge.
Milos Raonic has always turned heads with his big serve.
Zhang, who was 0-14 in Grand Slam matches entering this tournament, will play Johanna Konta, who had a 4-6, 6-4, 8-6 win over 2015 semifinalist Ekaterina Makarova and became the first British woman since Jo Durie in 1983 to advance to the quarterfinals in Australia.
“I didn’t think it was that straightforward”. It’s all seeded opponents in the top half of the women’s bracket, though, with Williams facing Maria Sharapova and Agnieszka Radwanska set to play Carla Suarez Navarro.
“I’ve been sick since 10 days now”, Wawrinka said.
“I really enjoyed the match for what it was”, she said.
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And after ending Australian interest in their Grand Slam by beating Bernard Tomic, Murray knows he will face another physically demanding task against the Spanish roadrunner.
