Briefs of Melbourne tournament

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January 23, 2017 11:02 AM

Dan Evans said his tournament highlight was receiving messages from Kevin Pietersen.

Switzerland's Roger Federer celebrates victory against Japan's Kei Nishikori in the fourth round of the Australian Open in Melbourne on January 22, 2017

Brief stories from the Australian Open on Monday:

Sync or swim

Roger Federer was embarrassed by his singing voice in a cringe-worthy rendition of Chicago's "Hard To Say I'm Sorry".

Federer, Grigor Dimitrov and Tommy Haas laboured through the 1980s ballad in footage posted on Twitter with the hashtag #NOTNSYNC.

"I thought it was terrible acoustics in that room. Oh God," he said, when the video was played at Rod Laver Arena after his win over Kei Nishikori.

"I didn't even know that song that well. Even though I have heard it many, many times, the lyrics are not my thing, that's why I think my voice was playing up a little bit."

KP-ing the peace

Dan Evans said his tournament highlight was receiving messages from Kevin Pietersen.

They began their dialogue after the ex-England cricketer snubbed Evans for a selfie, later explaining he was drunk.

Evans said his favourite moment in Melbourne was "probably KP inboxing me. Wondering what is going to happen to his image. That's probably the only reason he did it".

Evans said Pietersen also gave him tickets to the Melbourne Renegades' Big Bash game against Perth Scorchers on Saturday.

"I was going anyway, but he just gave us the tickets. It was a good match actually," Evans said, adding: "It's all cool (with Pietersen). It's fine."

He's bad

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga said his ultimate selfie would be with Michael Jackson. Undeterred by the King of Pop's death in 2009, the Frenchman said: "It would be great (to have a selfie) with Michael. Like this I could show it to everybody, 'Look!'"

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