Japan’s Kei Nishikori outlasted fifth seeded Canadian Milos Raonic 4-6 7-6 6-7 7-5 6-4 to move into the quarter-finals of the US Open yesterday, equalling the record for latest match ever played at the year’s final grand slam.

Raonic and the 10th seeded Nis-hikori stepped onto the court for the last match of the evening at the Arthur Ashe Stadium to a near full house late Monday.

The two players exited four hours and 19 minutes later in the wee hours of the morning at 2.26am having contested what was the joint latest finish ever at the US Open.

The finishing time matches two other marathon contests played at Flushing Meadows by Philipp Kohlscheiber and John Isner in 2012 and Mats Wilander and Mikael Pernfors in 1993.

With only a few thousand spectators sprinkled across the massive stadium, Nishikori made the decisive breakthrough when he broke Raonic to go up 3-2 in the fifth set then consolidated with a love-hold and grimly fought off challenges by the big-hitting Canadian, who fired 35 aces at his Japanese opponent.

“I was down 2-1 in the third it was really tight and it was really tough,” said Nishikori.

“He had great serve so I just tried to play one point at a time and keep fighting.”

Nishikokri will next meet Swiss third seed Stan Wawrinka, who took a much quicker path to the last eight beating Spain’s Tommy Rob-redo 7-5 4-6 7-6 6-2.