{"id":76924,"date":"2016-01-26T11:46:39","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T10:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/?p=76924"},"modified":"2016-01-27T12:12:13","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T11:12:13","slug":"novak-rolls-past-nishikori-sets-up-federer-semi-final-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-rolls-past-nishikori-sets-up-federer-semi-final-showdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak rolls past Nishikori, sets up Federer semi-final showdown!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Auto<\/p>\n

The Serbian and world no.1 produced dominant display against no.7 seed Kei Nishikori on Tuesday evening, sealing a commanding 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 victory to set up a last four encounter with no.3 seed Roger Federer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Belgrade native is through to the semi-finals at Melbourne Park for the sixth time and has a 55-6 tournament record.<\/p>\n

Novak was in cruise control from the very beginning. After easing into a two-set lead, the defending champion was made to work a little harder in the third. The players had traded breaks twice before Djokovic made a crucial break in the seventh game and consolidated it for 5-3 lead. He served it out two games later, improving his career H2H mark with the Japanese to 6-2 after two hours and seven minutes of play.<\/p>\n

“I know Kei very well. He’s not afraid to come out and be aggressive. I needed to weather the storm and I thought I did well in the important moments,”<\/strong> said Novak. “I have to be satisfied. I reached semifinals. I won against a top-10 player in straight sets. Comparing to the fourth round match, this was much better. That makes me confident and encourages me for the next one.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Match statistics<\/u>: aces (6-9), double faults (2-4), winners (22-31), unforced errors (27-54), total points won (99-74).<\/p>\n

Novak and Roger will meet for the 45th time in a highly-anticipated Australian Open<\/a> semis on Thursday at 19:30 local time (09:30 CET). They are tied 22-22 in ATP H2H.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Djokovic won their last match, beating the Swiss for the 2015 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals title 6-3, 6-4.<\/p>\n

On his semi-final opponent, Nole said: “It seems like half of my career match-ups are with him. It’s always a great challenge. I have so much respect for him. I’m expecting a great fight. Roger is playing really terrific tennis in last two years. We played two Grand Slam finals last year. I know very well how good he plays, especially in the later stages of a major event. He always makes you play your best. My best is what is going to be necessary to win against him. Hopefully I’ll be able to deliver.”
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Andy Murray (GBR, 2) will take on Milos Raonic (CAN, 13) in the second semi-final.<\/p>\n

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

Nole produced dominant display against no.7 seed Kei Nishikori, sealing a commanding 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 victory to set up a last four encounter with Roger Federer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":76922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012519,133,101011740,101011507,101011403],"class_list":["post-76924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-australian-open-2016-en","tag-defending-champion","tag-grand-slam","tag-kei-nishikori","tag-quarterfinal-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76924","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=76924"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76969,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76924\/revisions\/76969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}