{"id":58144,"date":"2014-05-16T19:14:13","date_gmt":"2014-05-16T17:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=58144"},"modified":"2014-05-17T02:20:06","modified_gmt":"2014-05-17T00:20:06","slug":"novak-edges-past-ferrer-to-secure-semi-final-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-edges-past-ferrer-to-secure-semi-final-spot\/","title":{"rendered":"Rome Masters: Novak edges past Ferrer to secure semi-final spot!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Auto<\/p>\n

No.2 seed Novak Djokovic overcame a strong challenge from fifth-seeded David Ferrer to win 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 on Friday and reach the semi-finals of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 clay-court tournament in Rome<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The match lasted two hours and 31 minutes.<\/p>\n

Players traded breaks in the opening set. Novak managed to break once again in the 12th game for 7-5.<\/p>\n

Ferrer fought back to clinch the second set 6-4 and force a decider.<\/p>\n

Djokovic was more determined than his rival in the final third set. He won it 6-3 and improved his H2H record with the Spaniard to 12-5.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old Belgrade native recorded his sixth victory in a row over the world no.5 and second on clay in their five career meetings on the red surface.<\/p>\n

“It was the most physical match I had on clay this year,”<\/strong> said Novak. “I am really glad to overcome this challenge because David is a great competitor. I respect him a lot. We all know how good his record is on clay – the best after Nadal. Knowing that I am going to work for every single point of the match, coming out as a winner gives me a lot of satisfaction and confidence.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Match statistics<\/span>: aces (3-2), double faults (2-0), winners (39-25), unforced errors (35-28), total points won (98-91).<\/p>\n

Novak will face Canadian Milos Raonic on Saturday about 14:00 CET.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Serb won their only previous encounter, in the 2013 Davis Cup semis (7-6, 6-2, 6-2).<\/p>\n

Defending champion Rafael Nadal (ESP, 1) will meet Grigor Dimitrov (BUL, 12) in the second semi-final of the day.<\/p>\n

Photo: AP<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nole beat no.5 seed David Ferrer 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 to advance into the Internazionali BNL d\u2019Italia last four.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":58139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012177,101012444,101011745,101010421],"class_list":["post-58144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-1000-en","tag-internazionali-bnl-ditalia-en","tag-quarterfinal","tag-rome-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58144","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=58144"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58183,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58144\/revisions\/58183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}