Novak Djokovic admits he's gambling with his fitness as he hobbled into the next round at the Australian Open.
The men's world no. 1 has been battling with an abdominal injury since Friday and had to take pain killers to beat Milos Raonic in last night's fourth round match.
It didn't come easy for the Serbian, who had to recover from a second set loss to make the quarter-finals 7-6 (7-4) 4-6 6-1 6-4.
"It's kind of a gamble, that's what the medical team told me. It's really unpredictable," Djokovic said.
"It could cause much more damage than it is at the moment, but it also could go in a good direction. That's something that I don't know, and I don't think I will know until I stop taking painkillers. As long as I'm with high dose of painkillers, I guess I still can bear some of the pain.
"But the tricky thing with the painkillers is that they hide what's really happening in there, so you might not feel it, but then the big damage might be done."
The men's draw, however, will be without third seed Dominic Thiem, who crashed out to Grigor Dimitrov.
The Austrian was beaten 6-4 6-4 6-0 by Dimitrov, going on to say physical issues had also hindered his performance.
"I'm not a machine. I mean, sometimes I would like to be, but there are really, really bad days," last year's finalist said.
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