NEW YORK (AP) -Put it this way: A weary Novak Djokovic was relieved to pocket a victory Tuesday.
The No. 3-seeded Djokovic reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals for the first time by beating No. 23 Juan Monaco 7-5, 7-6 (2), 6-7 (6), 6-1 in a match that included the unusual sight of Monaco losing a point because a ball fell out of his shorts.
``I went nuts! I was cursing at me, I was yelling at my pants,'' Monaco said.
Monaco was serving while ahead 5-3 in the third-set tiebreaker when the players settled into an extended baseline exchange. As Monaco whipped a shot, an extra yellow ball he had tucked away in case of a fault popped out of his pocket - the second time it happened during the match. He stopped playing, dropped his racket, doubled over and screamed, knowing what was coming.
``Right away I knew I lost that point. It's very weird,'' Monaco said. ``That sort of thing cannot happen twice in the same match.''
Chair umpire Jake Garner had no choice.
``By rule,'' he announced, ``he loses the point.''
Djokovic gladly took it.
``I never had this situation in match,'' he said. ``First-time experience that I got a point in that way. It was an important point.''
That got Djokovic to 5-4, and he held a match point at 6-5. Monaco saved that with a service winner, and eventually won that set. But Djokovic grabbed a 3-0 lead in the fourth set and wound up winning in 3 hours, 53 minutes.
A couple of hours earlier, Djokovic was flat on the court, his face resting on a white towel, his back being massaged by a trainer. A few feet away, another trainer was attending to Monaco, who wanted his right elbow examined and his right ankle taped after a nasty fall while diving for a shot in the second set.
Djokovic held up better down the stretch, though, and he now faces No. 17 Carlos Moya. The 31-year-old Moya is the oldest man still in the tournament, and the player he beat 7-5, 6-2, 6-7 (5), 6-4 in the fourth round Tuesday, 19-year-old Ernests Gulbis of Latvia, was the youngest left.
The Djokovic-Monaco marathon delayed the start of the night session and the most anticipated match of the day: Serena Williams against Justine Henin in a third consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinal.
Williams leads active players with eight major titles; Henin has won six.
Also at night: No. 2 Rafael Nadal faced No. 15 David Ferrer. The Nadal-Ferrer winner was to meet No. 20 Juan Ignacio Chela, who got past Stanislas Wawrinka in five sets.
Like Djokovic, Chela reached his first U.S. Open quarterfinal. Moya, however, has been there before - although not since 1998.
``Still beating these young guys,'' Moya said. ``I feel, like, 20 years old.''
And Moya, a former No. 1 who won the 1998 French Open, was fresh right down the very end. On his second match point, both players wound up at the net, trading reflex volleys until Moya delivered a cross-court backhander that curled in to end it.
Moya rolled on his back and hopped up, arms raised.
``It was the best point of the match,'' Moya said. ``I was a bit tired, a bit nervous.''
It didn't show a bit against Gulbis, who went 4-2 at the majors and 0-10 at every other tournament in 2007.
More often than not, it was Gulbis who blinked first on lengthy points. Moya served spectacularly, facing only one break point all match. He earned 16 break points on Gulbis' serve, converting five.
They say statistics can be deceiving, and that certainly was the case in Chela's victory over Wawrinka.
Consider these numbers: Wawrinka won more points (145-142), produced far more clean winners (65-29) and even broke serve more often (8-7).
But it was Wawrinka who lost the most important point of all, the last one, with his 69th unforced error, 20 more than Chela accumulated.
As Chela walked to the net, smiling a wide smile, Wawrinka took everything out on his poor racket, violently cracking it twice on the court. As if that didn't mangle the tool of his trade enough, Wawrinka whacked the racket one more time as he walked off.
The 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (6), 1-6, 6-4 victory was Chela's second in a row that went the distance; he was 1-8 for his career in five-setters until this tournament.
Chela trailed 2-0 in the last set before climbing all the way back. The secret to the Argentine's success?
``I didn't think too much,'' he said.
Wawrinka, meanwhile, was 8-0 in fifth sets at Grand Slam tournaments until Tuesday.
``He played well at the end of the fifth set,'' Wawrinka said, ``so I think he deserved to win.''
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