The second seed recorded a 7-6 (6), 5-7, 7-6 (3) victory and improved to 25-22 in their rivalry.<\/strong><\/p>\nFederer saved five break points in a gripping first set that went to a tie-break. Djokovic fought back from 2-4 behind and seized the initiative, denying a set point and sealing the opener in 71 minutes.<\/p>\n
The players remained on serve throughout the second set, until game 12 when the Swiss came up with a late break and sent the match to a decider.<\/p>\n
Novak failed to convert four break points in the third set, but played a great tie-breaker to emerge the victor after three hours and two minutes of a great battle.<\/p>\n
“It was a spectacular match. We had epic matches throughout our rivalry but this one definitely ranks as one of the best matches we played,”<\/strong> Novak said. “We went toe-to-toe. High quality tennis.”<\/strong><\/p>\nNole came on top despite having 0\/12 break point conversion rate. Both players won 74% of points on first serve.<\/p>\n
Match statistics: aces (8-17), double faults (0-2), winners (31-54), unforced errors (32-52), total points won (129-123).<\/p>\n
Djokovic, who will return to no.1 on Monday, is one win shy of tying Rafael Nadal\u2019s record with 33 ATP Masters 1000 titles.<\/p>\n
In the first semi-final of the day, Karen Khachanov<\/strong> upset sixth seed Dominic Thiem 6-4, 6-1.<\/p>\nIt will be the second H2H meeting between Novak and the 22-year-old Russian when they face each other in Sunday’s final (15:00 CET). <\/strong>The Serb won their only previous encounter, in R4 of\u00a0 2018 Wimbledon Championships (6-4, 6-2, 6-2).
\n<\/strong><\/p>\nThe reigning Wimbledon and US Open champion will be looking to lift 73rd trophy of his career and fifth in 2018 against the first-time Masters 1000 finalist.<\/p>\n
Novak carries a 4-0 record in Paris title matches into the final. He won the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in 2009, 2013, 2014 and 2015.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak and Roger met for 47th time in a thrilling Rolex Paris Masters semi-final. The second seed recorded a 7-6 (6), 5-7, 7-6 (3) victory and improved to 25-22 in their rivalry. He will be looking to lift 73rd trophy of his career and fifth in 2018 when he takes on Karen Khachanov (RUS) on Sunday at 15:00 CET<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":111763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012177,101010436,101011267,101012260,101013019,101010433],"class_list":["post-111769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-1000-en","tag-federer-en","tag-masters-1000-en","tag-paris-en","tag-rolex-paris-masters-en","tag-semifinal-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111769"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111936,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111769\/revisions\/111936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}