Bernard Tomic upset 11th seed Richard Gasquet 6-3 6-7(1) 6-4 to book a place in the quarterfinals of the 2015 Shanghai Rolex Masters, where he will face Novak Djokovic. Tomic trails 4-0 in his head-to-head series against the World No. 1 Serb.

Tomic, who is making his second quarterfinal appearance in an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event, needed two hours and 13 minutes to emerge victorious against the Frenchman in his third round match on Thursday. He fired 19 aces and saved two out of the two breakpoints he faced. Tomic, who is on a quest to end the season within the top 15 of the world rankings, was down 6-1 coming into his match with Gasquet, but the 22-year-old Australian was in top form to progress in the Shanghai tournament.

The highest-ranked Australian tennis player is enjoying his most successful season thus far. He was 78th in the world at the beginning of this year but reached his career-high singles rank as World No. 22 following his run during the David Cup semifinals against Great Britain. Just by making it in the third round, Tomic is guaranteed to climb two notches up to 18th when the new rankings are released on Monday.

According to the official website of the 2015 Shanghai Rolex Masters, Tomic, ahead of his match against Djokovic, joked that he will just have to “pray” and hope that something good happens when he faces the Serb, who is also bidding to win a third title in Shanghai (2012 and 2013). Djokovic scored easy victory over Feliciano Lopez 6-2 6-3 on Thursday.

Three of Tomic's previous encounters with Djokovic took place in an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Rome (2012), Canada (2012), and Indian Wells (2015), where Tomic was forced to pull out due to injured back and tooth pain. Tomic and Djokovic last played in the third round of the 2015 Wimbledon Championships.

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