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Near the end of her fourth-round win over Daria Kasatkina on Monday, Navarro heard the Bee Gees’ anthem of street survival—which was recorded 24 years before she was born—blast out on the loudspeakers in John Cain Arena. She realized she could relate.

“That’s what I’ve been doing in this tournament, staying alive,” the No. 8 seed said.

All four of Navarro’s wins in Melbourne have gone three sets, and all of those final sets have been close—either 6-4 or 7-5. The closest of all was the first one, a three-hour war with her friend Peyton Stearns in which Navarro was a few points from extinction in each of the last two sets. After walking similar highwires against Wang Xiyu, Ons Jabeur, and now Kasatkina, Navarro is starting to feel comfortable taking the long road to victory. These matches are what she trains for, after all, and what will make her stronger.

“I have worked really hard on my fitness to be able to go three sets and play over two hours, three hours, whatever it takes,” Navarro says. “I feel like my fitness has definitely paid off here in my first four matches.”

After beating Kasatkina, Navarro scrawled her new catchphrase, “stayin’ alive,” along with a smile and a tired tongue hanging out, on a camera lens. But it was only a week ago that two other, grimmer words seemed like they might be destined to describe her season: “sophomore slump.”

"When I made quarterfinals at the US Open, I felt, like, ‘Wow, this is pretty insane,’ but now, being in quarterfinals here in Australia, kind of feels like this is where I’m supposed to be.”

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In coming to Australia, Navarro was returning to the continent where, a year ago, she had begun her meteoric and unexpected rise from outside the Top 30 all the way up to No. 8. Twelve months ago, in Hobart, she won her first title. Back then, she was the hunter, the relative unknown, the one taking her opponents by surprise with that newfound fitness of hers, and all the improvements that came with it.

When she returned to Australia this month, though, all of that had changed. Navarro was the No. 2 seed in Brisbane and Adelaide, and her second-week runs at Wimbledon and the US Open last summer had made her very much a known quantity. She was the hunted now, and she wouldn’t take anyone by surprise.

Even worse, perhaps, Navarro also hadn’t played since October. The result now seems predictable. She lost her first match in Brisbane to 101st-ranked Kimberly Birrell. She lost her second match in Adelaide to Liudmila Samsonova. A couple hours into her first match in Melbourne against Stearns, she looked destined to lose that one as well.

I found myself wondering if, at a slender 5-foot-7, Navarro’s relative lack of size and power, and consequent struggles with winning free points, would make life more difficult for her this season. Going from No. 32 to No. 8 is one thing; going higher from there, or even just staying afloat in the Top 10, is another.

But instead of revealing a weakness of Navarro’s, her Australian campaign has revealed another strength, or maybe forced her to develop another strength, that’s essential for any aspiring champion: The ability to win without your best, to win not because your game is superior on a given day, but because your mental resources run deeper.

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“Definitely did not have my best stuff today,” Navarro said after beating Stearns. “It was just relying a lot, I guess, on my grit and toughness and fight.”

“I just kept telling myself there at the end, ‘Make the most of the skills I have today.’ I think maybe that’s something that kind of clicked there for me at the end.”

It clicked, and then clicked again, and again, and again. Even now, after she’s reached her third straight major quarterfinal, Navarro says she’s doing it without her A game. But she’s getting closer.

“Today was definitely the best match I’ve played,” she said after finally edging her Russian mirror-image, Kasatkina. “I feel like every match I have been getting a little bit better.”

Navarro’s slog into the second week has also revealed another positive about her mindset: She has already adjusted to the idea that she should be going deep at the majors, a concept that seemed fantastical to her just last summer.

Definitely did not have my best stuff today... I just kept telling myself there at the end, ‘Make the most of the skills I have today.’

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“I think I used to look at Grand Slams as a bit more than they are,” she says. “I was kind of thinking after the match today that when I made quarterfinals at the US Open, I felt, like, ‘Wow, this is pretty insane,’ but now, being in quarterfinals here in Australia, kind of feels like this is where I’m supposed to be.”

Now Navarro may need more than grit. She’ll face Iga Swiatek in the quarters, and the No. 2 seed does seem to have her A game: In her last three matches, Swiatek has lost just four games. She did the same to Navarro in their only meeting, six years ago, when she beat her 6-0, 6-2.

Can Navarro stay alive against her first higher-ranked opponent Down Under? She says she’s hoping to avoid another marathon.

“I prefer to win in two sets,” Navarro says with a smile, though it sounds like she’d be happy to take a win any way she can get it. “That’s a goal, but we'll see what happens.”