Serbian star Novak Djokovic reached his 14th Grand Slam singles final on Friday, after defeating no.11 seed and 2008 Wimbledon junior champion Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(2), 7-6(7) in intense semi-final that lasted three hours and two minutes.<\/strong><\/p>\nDimitrov made four errors in the fifth game of the opening set to hand Novak a break. The Belgrade native was a perfect 19\/19 on serve at that point. He cruised through his games and closed the set 6-4 in 26 minutes.<\/p>\n
He broke first in the second set and held for 3-1 lead, but from there, Dimitrov raised the level of his game, and Djokovic started making more errors, which resulted in five straight games for the Bulgarian who took the set 6-3 to level at one-set-all.<\/p>\n
Nole fended off a break point in the seventh game of the third set, which showed to be crucial for his confidence in the rest of the match. He went on to win a tie-breaker 7-2.<\/p>\n
Three double faults and a forehand error from Dimitrov handed Djokovic an early break in the fourth set. However, Grigor broke back immediately for 2-2. The set went into a tie-breaker. Dimitrov took a 6-3 lead, but Novak remained composed. He saved all three set points and eventually sealed the set and match 9-7 with a cross-court forehand winner.<\/p>\n
“I was playing in the semi-final against a future star. He is already a top player after beating Murray and he deserves respect for that. For his first semi he was really fighting and it was tough,\u201c <\/strong>Novak said. “I am just pleased to go through. It is a good win for me I am glad to be part of a great match.”
\n<\/strong>
\nThe top seed won 73% of points on first delivery and was 27\/47 when approaching the net.<\/p>\nMatch statistics<\/span>: aces (17-15), double faults (2-8), winners (45-48), unforced errors (26-33), total points won (140-136).<\/p>\nNovak will face no.4 seed and seven-time titlist Roger Federer (16-18 H2H record) in Sunday’s final (15.00 CET). The Swiss beat Milos Raonic<\/strong> (CAN, 8) in straight sets.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\nIf Nole captures his 7th Major title, he would return to no.1 in the ATP Rankings on Monday.<\/p>\n
“Considering I have lost the last couple of Grand Slam finals I am really looking forward to it,\u201c<\/strong> Novak said. “It’s a big match. Whoever I will play in the final, I will have to be at my best in the biggest match in sport.”<\/strong><\/p>\nPhoto: Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak beat no.11 seed Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(2), 7-6(7) in three hours, two mins on Friday to reach his third final at the All England Club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":59778,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101010469,101011454,101012193,101010433,101011449,101012463],"class_list":["post-59780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-grand-slam-en-2","tag-grigor-dimitrov-en","tag-london-en","tag-semifinal-en","tag-the-championships-en","tag-wimbledon-2014-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59780","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=59780"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59846,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59780\/revisions\/59846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Nole](\"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/wimbledon_12.jpg\")
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