Top seed Simona Halep is through to the fourth round after she saw off unseeded American Lauren Davis in an epic Australian Open third round clash.

The 26-year old Romanian had to save three match points in the decider before beating Davis 4-6 6-4 15-13 in three hours and 45 minutes with the last set lasting 142 minutes before the world number one finally served out the match at the fourth attempt.

Speaking after the game, Halep said: “I never played a third set so long. I’m almost dead.”

“My muscles are gone. I don’t know how my ankle is because I can’t feel it any more.” she added.

Angelique Kerber is also through to the last 16 following a dominant performance over Maria Sharapova

The German 21st seed defeated Sharapova 6-1 6-3 in 64 minutes in the clash of the only two former champions left in the draw.

2016 champion Kerber will play world number 88 Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan for a place in the quarter-final.

After her victory, Kerber said: “I know Maria is always fighting.”

“After the first set, I was trying to not thinking about the score, just going for it, trying to be aggressive and playing my game.

“And it works. It works from the beginning. I’m happy about how I played tonight.” she concluded.

On her defeat, Sharapova said: “I think she played extremely well.”

“She was the more aggressive player. She took a lot more risks than I did.” the Russian added.

Speaking further, the world number 48 said: “There’s a lot of things I need to improve on.”

“This is a process. It’s a lot of things that take time.

“To be able to get these matches, players that are playing this well, I’m going to face a lot of them this year. I’ll have to bring it.

“Today was not enough.” Sharapova concluded.