No.2 seed Novak Djokovic was leading 6-1, 2-1 when Damir Dzumhur retired with a back injury after 53 minutes of play in their third round match at the Rolex Paris Masters on Thursday.
The 31-year-old Serbian star, who will return to world no.1 in the ATP rankings on Monday, broke his rival three times from eight opportunities en-route to his 20th consecutive match win. He also extended his streak to 30 consecutive sets won, setting a personal best.
Match statistics: aces (1-0), double faults (0-4), winners (12-9), unforced errors (12-19), total points won (44-30).
For a place in the semi-finals, Novak will meet fifth seed Marin Cilic on Friday.
The four-time former titlist leads the Croat 15-2 in their ATP H2H series. Cilic defeated no.9 seed Grigor Dimitrov 7-6 (5), 6-4 earlier in the day.
Ahead of their last eight clash, Djokovic said: “It’s going to be a tough one. It is tough to receive his missiles. His first serves are really, really fast, and he uses a lot of rotation and variation with his serve. If he has a high first serve percentage, then it’s obviously a big challenge to play him because he’s got a really big game from back of the court. I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be a great match.”
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