Breaking his opponent's serve a massive five times while fending off three break points on his own, the 27-year-old South Australian was pleased with his overall performance.

"Right from the get go, I felt like I was engaged physically and mentally and he's got a big game, he's had a couple of good wins this week so I knew I had to get onto him early and I felt like I did that," he said.

"I think I was just able to keep pressure on his serve. I made a lot of returns and made it hard for him every single service game and I felt like the accumulation of pressure just got to him in the end."

ELSEWHERE IN SPORT

Coming down to Tasmania for both the Burnie and Launceston events following two five-set tussles at the Australian Open, including holding a two-sets-to-one lead over eventual runner-up Dominic Thiem, Bolt now has the belief his game can match it with the best.

"Playing a couple of five setters at the Aussie Open has given me the belief and the confidence that I can take it with the big guys and that's given me even more confidence to come down here to these smaller tournaments and really have a crack to take these out.

"If I keep doing the right things on my days off and keep playing matches like this, then these results will come and I will be able to be playing at those ATP Tour-level events more often."

In a similar tennis story to the likes of women's world No.1 Ash Barty and fellow Australian Blake Mott, who tasted defeat in the third round, Bolt enjoyed a break from tennis following the 2016 Launceston International, building fences and playing district Aussie Rules.

Like his fellow Australians, he looks back on this time with great fondness and with his ranking climbing from 586 to a career-high 125 last year.

"I have more perspective on life in general and also my tennis game - I feel like I know my game a lot more since I took that time off and it was the best thing I've ever done for my tennis."

Now sitting at 151, Bolt takes on unseeded Italian Liam Caruana, who he described as a "high-quality, good ball striker" after defeating him 7-5 7-5 in Burnie last week.

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Bolt was the sole Australian to progress to the quarter-finals of the men's following Mott's 6-3 7-6 loss to Great Britain's Liam Broady while Tasmania's Harry Bourchier fell to Belgium's Kimmer Copperjans 6-2 7-5.

In the women's ITF event, Australian teenage wildcard Amber Marshall pushed past Belinda Woolcock 1-6 6-1 6-1 as Abbie Myers progressed against Alexandra Bozovic 6-3 3-6 6-3 and Destanee Aiava defeated Zuzana Zlochova 6-3 6-3.

Jaimee Fourlis and Ivana Popovic were defeated in straight sets.

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