Djokovic-Murray Semis Showdown Set for Shanghai
Novak Djokovic made his way into the Shanghai Rolex Masters semifinals on Friday, defeating Australian Bernard Tomic 7-6(6), 6-1 to set up a matchup with familiar Andy Murray in the final four.
Tomic was up for the Djokovic challenge early, rallying back from a 2-4 deficit to force a tie-breaker in the opening set. He would save two match points in the breaker, but couldn’t save a third, and Djokovic snuck out the first set.
And from there, the world number one put his stranglehold on the match. His return game stepped up, giving himself eight break point chances, converting on three of them to cruise through the second set 6-1.
“It was a very good first set. High quality tennis from both of us. Especially Bernard, he played some smart tennis, stepping in every shorter ball, serving very accurately. He pushed me,” said Djokovic. “[It] went down to a couple points to decide the first set in the tiebreak. Obviously it was a huge relief for me to win the first set, and started off the second with a break. That gave me more confidence. I think I played a very, very good second set.”
Murray cruised past sixth-seeded Czech Tomas Berdych 6-1, 6-3 on Friday to advance to the semifinals.
The other semifinal in Shanghai will see 16th seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga take on eighth-seeded Spaniard Rafael Nadal.
Tsonga hung on to win his quarterfinal on Friday, downing 12th seeded South African Kevin Anderson 7-6(6), 5-7, 6-4.
Nadal rolled past fourth-seeded Swiss Stan Wawrinka 6-2, 6-1. From 2-2 in the first set, Nadal rattled off 10 of the final 11 games to blow past Wawrinka and into the semifinals.
“Being in the semifinals is a great result for me,” said Nadal. “I hadn’t played the semifinals on hard court all year and now I am playing two weeks in a row in the final rounds. That’s a big improvement for me. [I’m] very happy for that because I am working so hard.”
