Guillermo Garcia-Lopez has booked his place in the fourth round of the Australian Open for the first time in his career after powering past Vasek Pospisil.

The Spaniard seized the initiative early in the first set as he capitalised on mistakes from the Canadian to break him twice before holding serve to take the set 6-2.

Pospisil continued to make errors in the second set but a break of the 31-year allowed him to remain in the set, before Garcia-Lopez took his chance to claim the set with a 6-4 victory in a hard-fought contest.

The third set remained with serve as both players produced an excellent array of shots to keep the other at bay. However, the Spaniard forced the breakthrough at the decisive moment to clinch the match by taking the third set 6-4 in 42 minutes.

Garcia-Lopez will play reigning champion Stanislas Wawrinka in the last 16 of the tournament.