BEIJING: Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal will renew their long rivalry in the China Open final on Sunday after both won their semi-finals in straight sets.

Top-ranked Djokovic improved his perfect record at the tournament to 28-0 with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over David Ferrer of Spain, while Nadal defeated Italy’s Fabio Fognini 7-5, 6-3.

Nadal leads their head-to-head 23-21, but hasn’t beaten Djokovic since the French Open final last year.

Djokovic dropped his serve for the first time this week, but broke the fourth-seeded Ferrer six times to close out the match in 74 minutes.

He has now won 25 straight sets at the China Open and will be vying for his sixth title in six attempts on Sunday.

Third seed Nadal reached his first hard-court final in more than a year. The Spaniard’s previous hard-court final was at the Sony Open in Miami in March 2014 and he last won a hard-court tournament two months before that in Doha, Qatar.

Nadal and Fognini each dropped serve twice in the opening set before the Spaniard got the decisive break to capture the set with Fognini serving at 5-6.

Then, in the sixth game of the second set, Fognini sent a backhand long to give Nadal another break and a 4-2 lead, which the Spaniard did not relinquish.

In women’s play, Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky defeated Ana Ivanovic 5-7, 6-4, 6-1 to reach the final. With the result, she’s now assured of making the top 10 for the first time in her career.

Bacsinszky will play Garbine Muguruza in the final after the Spaniard defeated Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

‘SHOELESS’ PAIRE SHOCKS NISHIKORI

TOKYO: Lightning struck again for a dazed Kei Nishikori here on Saturday as the defending champion was ambushed by “shoeless” Frenchman Benoit Paire in the Japan Open semi-finals.

Paire, playing in a pair of badly torn sneakers following a forlorn dash to buy some new ones, won a nail-biter 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 to prove his first-round upset over Nishikori at the US Open six weeks ago was no fluke.

Top seed Stan Wawrinka awaits his close friend in Sunday’s Tokyo final after the French Open champion produced a clinical 6-4, 7-6 win over Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller.

Nishikori’s bid for a third Japan Open crown in four years came to a shuddering halt as Paire roared back from dropping a whirlwind first set in just 20 minutes.

His tattered yellow shoes held together with medical tape and with only one spare racquet in his kit bag, Paire levelled the match by ripping a backhand down the line, celebrating with a gunslinger’s pose as a sellout crowd of 12,000 fell silent.

The Frenchman broke early in the decider and the world number 32 fought off a late Nishikori salvo to deliver the coup de grace after an hour and 48 minutes with a massive forehand into the corner.

“I like these shoes,” smiled Paire, who spent the morning searching in vain for replacements, then borrowed some Cyprus’s Marcos Baghdatis had left in the locker room before opting to stick with his old, dishevelled pair.

“I’ve won a lot of matches with them and I’ll play with them tomorrow,” added Paire.

In contrast, Wawrinka never looked troubled in his semi-final, taking the opening set with the minimum of fuss.

Twice Muller double-faulted to gift Wawrinka a break in the second, only for the world number four to immediately surrender his own serve.

But Wawrinka knuckled down in the tiebreaker and closed out proceedings with a crunching forehand return which Muller could only volley wide.

Published in Dawn, October 11th , 2015

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