Novak Djokovic notched another victory in his current run of hot form in China as the second seed advanced into the semi-finals of the Shanghai Masters over Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-2, 6-3 Friday.
The Serb is the highest seed remaining in the field after the elimination of number one Rafael Nadal in a third-round shock by Austrian Juergen Melzer.
A fortnight ago, Garcia-Lopez stunned Nadal in the Bangkok semi-finals. Garcia-Lopez had won 10 of his last 11 matches before running into Djokovic, rising from outside the Top 50 to his current 35th.
Djokovic improved to 4-0 over the Spaniard as he won his eighth consecutive match in China after backing up his 2009 Beijing title with more of the same last week. The Serb stands 52-13 on the season and has not lost a set so far in his last two tournaments.
Fourth seed Andy Murray showed off a fresh game after his own troubles with illness at Beijing, moving into his first semi-final since Toronto last August with a defeat of French 12th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-2, 6-2.
“I played well today, served good, and got off to a good start, which is important against him,” said Murray. “He’s a really good frontrunner. But he struggled a little bit on his serve, he wasn’t serving as big as usual, “I managed to get into a lot of the return games. I served well and didn’t give him any chances on my serve.
“I was hitting the ball really clean from the back of the court, so it was a good start.” Murray won as the stadium roof was opened for the first time this week after rain cleared out of the area. The fourth seed fired five aces while breaking Tsonga four times. Murray now stands 4-1 in the series.
Tsonga is still shaky after missing the summer after Wimbledon with a knee injury and losing in his return in the Tokyo first round last week.
