Frenchman Gilles Simon put up a fight before second seed Novak Djokovic struggled through into his second straight semifinal in China with a 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 win at the Shanghai Masters on Friday.
Second seed Djokovic backed up his Beijing title of last weekend as he overcame stiff resistance to advance into the last four, with Simon saving a pair of match points.
The Serb broke to start the opening set before Simon, winner of the Bangkok title last month, retaliated by taking the second.
A run of breaks in the third finally ended with Djokovic taking a 4-2 lead on his way to a semifinal spot in his fifth Masters 1000 of the season.
Nikolay Davydenko moved closer to a spot in next month’s season-ending showpiece in London with a 6-1, 4-6, 6-1 defeat of Radek Stepanek in his quarter final.
The Russian sixth seed, who missed three months of the season with injuries but has still reached a dozen quarterfinals in 2009, leapfrogged Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Chile’s Fernando Gonzalez to currently stand a provisional ninth in the race to the World Tour Finals.
Three places remain up for grabs in the eight-man field with a month of the regular ATP season to go.
Davydenko, aged 28, next faces Djokovic standing 0-3 in the series.
Spain’s unseeded Feliciano Lopez continued his winning streak of the season, producing his best showing of 2009 for a place in the final four with an upset of ninth seed Robin Soderling 7-6 (7/4), 6-3.
The Swede, who played the Roland Garros final against Roger Federer, led 4-2 in the opening set before Lopez, 28 and ranked 41st, seized the momentum for the win in 94 minutes with three breaks of serve and 30 unforced errors by Soderling.
Lopez could next face fellow Spaniard Rafael Nadal if the top seed goes past Ivan Ljubicic later.
Davydenko regained control against 13th-seed Stepanek after the 30-year-old Czech won the second set to pull level.
Davydenko re-established his dominance in the final set as he broke twice and went through on his first match point after just over two hours at the Qi Zhong complex.
”Stepanek changed the game in the second set. He started to better return and play better from the baseline. He’s very difficult to play, so unpredictable. You never know what he will do in a match.”
The Russian is trying to complete the autumn Asian swing with a second title after lifting his third of the season in Kuala Lumpur a fortnight ago.
”I’ve had good results in Asia for three weeks,” he said. ”I still have three more tournaments this season. I hope I can play well [at the final Masters 1000 of the season] at Paris Bercy and defend my semifinal there.” — AFP
