Saturday, 20 January 2018: Fifth seed Dominic Thiem has posted a comfortable straight-sets win over Frenchman Adrian Mannarino and is hungry to make a deep run in Melbourne.

DOMINIC THIEM of Austria plays a backhand against Novak Djokovic of Serbia in the 2018 Kooyong Classic at Kooyong in Melbourne, Austral

Dark horse Dominic Thiem is hungry for a deep run at Melbourne Park after cruising into the second week of the Australian Open with a straight-sets win over Adrian Mannarino.

The Austrian fifth seed showed no ill effects of his third-round, five-set scare against American qualifier Denis Kudla, backing up on Saturday with a 6-4 6-2 7-5 victory in two hours and eight minutes.

Winless against the two-time French Open semi-finalist in six previous meetings, Mannarino never looked like breaking his duck as Thiem broke his serve at will.

"Seven-nil - that's right," Thiem said.

"It's been some very close matches. I'm very lucky that there's still a zero.

"So I knew from the start that I'd have to play very well to beat him and I think I did it."

The Austrian has endured a horror lead-in to the Open, battling a poor run of form to end last season and a viral infection at the Doha warm-up event.

Despite this, the young gun's consistency at the majors has remained steady, with Saturday's win taking his fourth-round grand slam streak to six.

But the 24-year-old is not content with stability and has big plans as he enters the second week at Melbourne Park.

"I've only gone twice further than the fourth round, so I'm a little bit tired of it," Thiem said.

"I want to go further than the fourth round and I will give everything to do it for the first time here on Monday."

Thiem set up a last-16 match-up with Stan Wawrinka's second-round hitman Tennys Sandgren.

The American battled past unseeded German Maximilian Marterer 5-7 6-3 7-5 7-6 (7-5).

Italian Fabio Fognini ended French journeyman Julien Benneteau's final Australian Open campaign with a 3-6 6-2 6-1 4-6 6-3 loss to fiery .

Fognini, returning to the Open's fourth round for the first time in four years, will play either 10th-seeded Argentine Juan Martin del Potro or veteran Czech Tomas Berdych next on Sunday.

In a battle on the non-seeds, Hungarian Marton Fucsovics' dream Open continued with a 6-3 6-3 6-2 demolition of Argentine Nicolas Kicker.

The 25-year-old world No.80, who knocked off 13th-seeded American Sam Querrey earlier in the week, now faces a major step up in class, against either Swiss maestro Roger Federer or French star Richard Gasquet.