{"id":1435,"date":"2012-03-01T17:05:08","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T16:05:08","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-04-17T14:26:01","modified_gmt":"2012-04-17T13:26:01","slug":"nole-beats-janko-for-semi-final-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/nole-beats-janko-for-semi-final-spot\/","title":{"rendered":"Nole beats Janko for semi-final spot!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo: Reuters<\/font>{nl}{nl}Nole is through to the last four in Dubai for the fifth year in a row!{nl}{nl}The world no.1 improved to a 10-0 record this season with a victory over his friend and Davis Cup teammate Janko Tipsarevic 6-1, 7-6 (6) on Thursday.<\/b>{nl}{nl}He needed 1 hour and 36 minutes to beat the no.7 seed and reach the semi-finals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships<\/font><\/a><\/b>.{nl}{nl}Janko was nervous at the beginning of the match and it resulted in unforced errors. Novak was confident, he used his chances and broke Tipsarevic twice to take the set 6-1 in 26 minutes.{nl}{nl}The second set was decided in a tie-breaker. Janko double-faulted on his set point opportunity. Nole converted his chance for 8-6 and semi-final berth.{nl}{nl}“I thought I started really well,”<\/b> said Djokovic. “He was missing first serves, didn’t have a high percentage. Then in the second set, whenever I had a break ball he served well. So he was very close to take that second set. Then who knows what could have happened. We both got a little bit nervous towards the end, I guess, and it was just luck to prevail.”<\/b>{nl}{nl}Match statistics: aces (7-10), double faults (1-5), total points won (72-53).{nl}{nl}The top seed will face world no.4 Andy Murray for a place in the finals. The British no.1 defeated Czech Tomas Berdych 6-3, 7-5.<\/b>{nl}{nl}With the win, the 24-year-old Serbian star improved to a 23-2 record in his sixth appearance in Dubai. He will take a 7-4 record against Andy into the semi-final which is scheduled on Friday at 14.00 CET.{nl}{nl}They last met in 2012 Australian Open semis when Novak prevailed in five sets (6-3, 3-6, 6-7 (4), 6-1, 7-5).{nl}{nl}“Every time you play, especially top four, it’s a big challenge for both of us,<\/b>” said Nole. “Especially after that Australian Open thrilling match that lasted for five hours. It’s going to be a good match. We both look forward to that. We always try to win against each other and it’s a great rivalry.”<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World no.1 improved to a 10-0 record this season with a victory over his friend Janko Tipsarevic 6-1, 7-6 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3405,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012184],"class_list":["post-1435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-dubai-2012-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1435"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27015,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435\/revisions\/27015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}