MELBOURNE, Australia- Spanish third seed David Ferrer continued his amazing consistency by reaching his 15th consecutive Grand Slam fourth round at the Australian Open on Friday.

Ferrer downed Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 6-2, 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 in two hours 12 minutes on Rod Laver Arena in fierce afternoon heat.

Ferrer, a semi-finalist in Melbourne last year, will face Germany's Florian Mayer in the round of 16.

The tenacious Spanish hammered it out with Chardy from the baseline and fought off five second-set points to fight on in the bottom half of the men's draw.

His unforced errors outnumbered his winners 24-22 but he dominated from the baseline and only dropped his service once, while breaking Chardy's serve five times.

"I am very proud of that, I like to play consistent and over the last four to five years I have been getting some good results," Ferrer said of reaching the fourth round.

"I was relieved to win the second set, it was a miracle because I was a lot of set points down and after winning the second set I played more relaxed and felt better."

Ferrer leads Mayer 4-3, but lost his last encounter to the German at Shanghai last year.

SOURCE: AFP