Djokovic Moves On Down Under to Face Murray in Semis
Defending Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic of Serbia defeated Spain’s David Ferrer, 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-1, in action on Wednesday to advance to the semifinals. His semifinals opponent will be the fourth-seeded Andy Murray of Great Britain, a 6-3, 6-3, 6-1 winner over Japan’s Kei Nishikori. With both the top-seeded Djokovic and four seed Murray advancing, the top four ranked players in the world all advance to the semis of the Australian Open, with Spain’s Rafael Nadal, the number two seed, and Switzerland’s Roger Federer, the number three seed, rounding out the semis.
In the other semifinal, number two-seed Nadal will square off with third-seeded Federer, marking the first time the two former top-ranked stars have met in a semifinal since the 2005 French Open. It marks only the third time that the top four seeds have advanced to the semis at the Australian Open, the other two times took place in 1988 and 2005.
Djokovic buried his head in towels several times during breaks and looked to have a leg injury as well. Late in the third set, a tired-looking Djokovic sat down on a linesman’s chair during a line-call video challenge by Ferrer.
An hour after the match though, Djokovic let everyone know he is fine moving forward saying: “I don’t have any physical issues. I feel very fit and I feel mentally, as well, very fresh. It’s just today I found it very difficult after a long time to breathe because I felt the whole day my nose was closed a little bit. I just wasn’t able to get enough oxygen.”
Djokovic will get to rest a bit and take in the Open from a different perspective. He said he’d be watching the Nadal and Federer match like any tennis fan.
“I will enjoy it from my couch, they’re two out of four or five of the greatest players to play this game, they’ve been so dominant,” Djokovic said. “Every time they play it’s a treat. I’m going to have a nice dinner at home and watch them.”
Murray advanced to his fifth consecutive Grand Slam semifinal and his third consecutive final four finish at the Australian Open with his win over Nishikori.
“There were quite a few good rallies,” Murray said. “He came up with some good shots. A lot of the long points, the fun rallies, he was winning, he came up with some great shots. But I was just a little bit more solid today and probably had a little bit more in the tank than he did. He played three long matches. With the way that he plays, he needs to play a lot of long rallies. That was to my advantage today.”
