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MELBOURNE – Defending champion Novak Djokovic has called for "compromise" with Australian Open organisers after he was involved in another late night finish.

The third seed took the court at 11:10 pm on Sunday against Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis and did not wrap up until 2:26 am on Monday, with both complaining about the schedule.

"You have this unique excitement when you play the night matches. It's really fun. You make history by going into the 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 in the morning," Djokovic said.

"But on the other hand I don't think that this really benefits a lot of people that we played that late. Hopefully in the future we can make some compromise."

Baghdatis, the popular 2006 finalist, was up until 1:14 am in the previous round and was involved in the tournament's record late finish last year, staying up until 4:34 am for a five-set marathon with Lleyton Hewitt.

"It's a bit of a pain in the arse," said the Cypriot.

"My goal was to play the second week of the Australian Open. I made it by about three hours," he joked.

Djokovic said it was a relief to get off court unscathed -- and relatively early -- despite being pushed to a fourth set by the determined Baghdatis.

Both players warmed up and down several times as they waited for Jelena Dokic's three-hour victory over Alisa Kleybanova that preceded their match on Rod Laver Arena.

"It's big relief. We've been waiting for a couple of hours for the women's match and warming up on and off. Really happy to get through in the fourth set," he said.

"We had quite a lot fun before the match. In the locker room we were cheering that the match finishes a bit earlier, but it didn't."

Despite facing a shorter recovery time for his quarter-final with the in-form Andy Roddick, Djokovic was confident he would be ready.

"Physically I feel good. I had very good preparation period of a couple of weeks during the off season, and good matches in Sydney," he said.

"I feel physically very fit to play best of five every two days. I think I'm going to have enough time to recover and wait for the great encounter against Roddick."

Djokovic added that he was getting used to his new racquet after blaming a switch in sponsor for his slow start to the season.

"I'm really happy that things are going well with the racquet as well. I'm feeling much better on the court mentally and physically and game wise," he said.

Djokovic became Serbia's first Grand Slam champion with last year's win over Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga after beating three-time champion Federer in the semi-finals.