Rafael Nadal vs Fernando Gonzalez Australian Open 2009

The Spaniard raced to victory in less than two hours and is the only man to reach the last eight at Melbourne Park without dropping a set.

Gonzalez had staged a remarkable recovery in his previous match against Richard Gasquet to reach the fourth-round, saving a match point and coming from two sets down to win, but the effort had taken an enormous toll.

The 28-year-old Chilean began slowly, dropping his opening service game, and the first set was over in 37 minutes.

Nadal raced through the second but found himself down 3-0 in third. The top seed recovered to reel off five games in a row before serving out victory.

His next opponent in the quarter-finals on Wednesday is Frenchman Gilles Simon, who progressed when compatriot Gael Monfils retired in the fourth set.

Simon had been leading 6-4 2-6 6-1 and ahead 30-0 while serving when Monfils, who had been continuously flexing and shaking his right hand throughout the match, called a halt to proceedings.

Monfils, the 12th seed at Melbourne Park, had received treatment on his right wrist during the third set and then had it strapped before the fourth set began.

France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was in impressive form as he brushed aside the challenge of ninth seed James Blake.

Tsonga, the fifth seed and runner-up last year, thundered a stream of devastating serves towards his opponent giving the American little chance of breaking serve.

And the Frenchman's tidy volleying and, at times, inspirational anticipation of Blake's incursions to the net allowed him sufficient chances to break serve three times.

The first break came for Tsonga in the very first game of the match as a nervous-looking Blake failed to get in to the match from the start; and though the American pushed his opponent hard with some fantastic running throughout the rest of the set he was unable to break back.

The second set followed an identical pattern, with Blake losing his first service game once again and Tsonga unstoppable on his own serve.

Blake looked like he might turn things round in the third set, earning a break early on and racing in to a 5-2 lead as Tsonga's serve went off the boil.

But the American then failed to hold when serving for the set at 5-2, and Tsonga's power dominated the subsequent tie-break to give him the victory to line up a quarter-final encounter with Andy Murray's victor, Fernando Verdasco.