{"id":80625,"date":"2016-05-13T19:24:11","date_gmt":"2016-05-13T17:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/?p=80625"},"modified":"2016-05-13T23:15:37","modified_gmt":"2016-05-13T21:15:37","slug":"nole-tops-rafa-to-reach-the-last-four-in-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/nole-tops-rafa-to-reach-the-last-four-in-rome\/","title":{"rendered":"Nole tops Rafa to reach the last four in Rome!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nole<\/p>\n

Nole is two wins away from his third consecutive Rome Masters title.<\/p>\n

Defending champion Novak Djokovic continued his run at the Internazionali BNL d\u2019Italia<\/a> after defeating no.5 seed and seven-time former titlist Rafael Nadal 7-5, 7-6 (4) in a thrilling encounter to reach the semi-finals of the Italian Open on Friday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 28-year-old Belgrade native now leads their Head2Head series 26-23 and has won their past seven meetings.<\/p>\n

Between them, Djokovic and Nadal have won the past 11 editions of this ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament, held at the Foro Italico.<\/p>\n

Novak rallied from a break down to win the first set 7-5 against the Spaniard. The top seed was raising his level as the set went on. He was 2-4 behind, but fought back to level at 4-all. In a pulsating 12th game, Nole kept the pressure on Rafa and sealed the set in 72 minutes after a huge point.<\/p>\n

Djokovic also came back from 2-4 down in the second set to force a tie-breaker, which he won 7-4. The match lasted two hours and 24 minutes.<\/p>\n

“I held my nerve at the clutch moments,”<\/strong> said Novak in an on-court interview. “Even though I had nervy beginnings to both sets, with some good games and good play in the crucial moments, I managed to win. It’s a straight-sets win, but it feels like we played five sets. Winning against Nadal is the ultimate challenge on clay courts and one of the toughest challenges we have in sport. I have to be very pleased with the way I handled myself in the big moments today. I won against one of my biggest rivals on his preferred surface. We must not forget he\u2019s in form. He won Monte-Carlo and Barcelona and has played well the past couple of weeks. That gives me confidence for the rest of this tournament.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Match statistics<\/u>: aces (3-2), double faults (2-1), winners (27-23), unforced errors (27-31).<\/p>\n

For a place in the final, Novak will face Kei Nishikori of Japan (8-2 H2H) on Saturday at 20:00 CET. The sixth seed outplayed Dominic Thiem (AUT, 13) 6-3, 7-5.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Andy Murray (GBR,2) will play against lucky loser Lucas Pouille (FRA) in the first semi-final (14:30 CET).<\/p>\n

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

Djokovic beat no.5 seed Rafael Nadal 7-5, 7-6 (4) in titanic battle to progress into the semi-finals of the Italian Open on Friday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":80619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012177,101012562,101011745,101010864,101012240],"class_list":["post-80625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-1000-en","tag-internazionali-bnl-ditalia-2016-en","tag-quarterfinal","tag-rafael-nadal-en","tag-rome-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80625","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=80625"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80655,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80625\/revisions\/80655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}