Third seed Lleyton Hewitt battled back to beat Spanish teenager Rafael Nadal 7-5, 3-6, 1-6, 7-6, 6-2 in the Australian Open on Monday and reach the quarter-finals of his home Grand Slam for the first time.

Hewitt had been in deep trouble when the tricky left-hander strung together nine successive games in a crucial period to set up a two-sets-to-one lead but the tenacious Australian clawed his way back to force a tiebreak in the fourth set, which he won 7-3. *