MELBOURNE, Australia - Milos Raonic tied a Canadian tennis record by reaching his third career Grand Slam quarterfinal with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 6-7 (7), 6-3 win over Spain's Feliciano Lopez on Monday at the Australian Open.

Raonic, from Thornhill, Ont., joins Robert Powell as the only other Canadian man to reach the quarter-finals at three major events (1908, 1910 and 1912 Wimbledon).

Raonic made it to the Wimbledon semifinals last summer and reached the French Open quarter-finals in 2014. But he had never been past the fourth round in Melbourne.

"There was some great tennis played today and it's only going to get better," said Raonic after the match.

"It's an exciting time for Canadian tennis," he added. "It's great to see a lot of red and white at these matches. It's a pleasure to play."

The eighth seed will next face top-seeded Novak Djokovic of Serbia, who posted a 6-4, 7-5, 7-5 win over Gilles Muller of Luxembourg.

Raonic is the first Canadian man to make the quarter-finals in Melbourne since Michael Belkin did it back in 1968.

"It's great to be doing what I'm doing and that it is making a difference," Raonic said. "It is, I guess, part of some history, if you look really deep.

"But at the end of the day, I'm always pushing myself for what I want to achieve. I'm always looking in the mirror and saying, 'That's who I have to compare myself to — to myself."

In women's play, seventh seed Eugenie Bouchard of Westmount, Que., will play a Tuesday quarter-final against five-time Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova of Russia.

Raonic needed to go five sets and more than three hours to beat Lopez, breaking for 5-3 in the final set and hammering home huge serves — including three aces in the final game — before an errant return from the Spaniard sealed the win.

The 24-year-old Raonic finished with three breaks and 30 aces in a victory that also featured a massive 81 winners.

"I'm happy with the attitude that got me through. I stayed calm even though things weren't always panning out how I would have liked," he said. "I missed a lot of break-point opportunities, but overall I can't complain too much. I fought my way through."

Raonic improved his career record against Lopez to 2-2. He lost to the 14th-ranked Spaniard last summer in a Rogers Cup quarter-final in Toronto.