Andy Roddick ousted defending champion Novak Djokovic in straight sets on Friday to set up a semi-final clash with world No. 1 Rafael Nadal at the Indian Wells hardcourt tennis tournament.
Roddick, seeded seventh, needed just 68 minutes to dispatch the out-of-sorts Serbian 6-3, 6-2.
Djokovic, seeded third, double-faulted to give Roddick a match point, on which he fired a backhand long. He finished with 30 unforced errors.
Nadal, meanwhile, bounced back from a tough fourth-round match to notch a 6-2, 6-4 victory over sixth-seeded Argentine Juan Martin del Potro.
Two days earlier, Nadal saved five match points as he clawed his way to a win over David Nalbandian of Argentina.
There was no comparable drama in his victory over del Potro, although he hit a speed bump against the world No. 6 in the second set.
Leading 5-1, Nadal lost three straight games, del Potro saving a match point against his serve in the ninth game.
The Spaniard then bore down to close out the match with a love game — and headed off the practice court to work on a few things.
“I went to practice a little bit more the serve, because I served well in the beginning but later I had some mistakes, and a little bit more the backhand,” Nadal said.
However, he was pleased to get a straight-sets win over the sixth-ranked player in the world and pleased that, in contrast to his previous match, he went in with a clear strategy that he was able to execute.
Against Roddick, Nadal said, he couldn’t afford either a slow start or a shaky finish.
“He started the season very well. Semi-finals in Australia. He played the final in Doha, too, and he won in Memphis,” he said of the American. “I have to play very well.”
Djokovic had been gunning for his third straight appearance in the final at the first Masters series tournament of the year.
In 2007, he reached the final without dropping a set, but lost to Nadal, and last year he beat Nadal in the semi-finals before triumphing over surprise finalist Mardy Fish.
Djokovic has made a somewhat slow start to the season, but had appeared to be on the upswing after capturing his first title of the year in Dubai two weeks ago.
By booking his semi-final berth, Roddick matched his best performance at Indian Wells, where he made it to the final four in 2005 and 2007.
He broke Djokovic in the opening game of the match and wrapped up the first set with another break.
He gained the upper hand in the second set with a break to lead 4-2 and closed it out with yet another break.
“This was one of the worst matches, certainly, that I played,” Djokovic said.
In women’s action, defending champion Ana Ivanovic ended the dream run of Russian teen Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova to return to the final.
Ivanovic, seeded fifth, beat the the unseeded 17-year-old 6-2, 6-3 to set up a meeting with fourth-seeded Russian Vera Zvonareva in today’s final.
Zvonareva beat her doubles partner, eighth-seeded Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, 6-3, 6-3.
Pavlyuchenkova had beaten world No. 3 Jelena Jankovic and No. 10 Agnieszka Radwanska en route to her first WTA Tour semi-final.
But she hit a wall against Ivanovic, the reigning French Open champion who held the world No. 1 ranking for 12 weeks last year.
Ivanovic has made a slow start this year, exiting in the third round of the Australian Open and not reaching a semi-final until this week.
Down 2-5 in the second set, Pavlyuchenkova saved one match point against her own serve and held.
But she could make no inroads on Ivanovic’s serve, and the Serbian closed her out with a love game.
“I was really happy with my performance,” Ivanovic said. “She’s not an easy opponent, she doesn’t give you much rhythm. Going into the match, I didn’t know anything about her. I haven’t actually seen any of the matches she played. I just tried to do my game and be aggressive on her serve.”
Zvonareva, who won her eighth career title at Pattaya City earlier this year, continued her dominance of Azarenka, who has never taken a set from the Russian in four meetings.
“I’m overall pretty happy with my game,” Zvonareva said. “I had a few double faults, a few mistakes here and there, but I was going for my shots.”
She broke Azarenka in the first game of the second set and again in the final game to seal the victory in one hour and 20 minutes.
Azarenka, a 19-year-old who captured the first two titles of her career this year in Brisbane and Memphis, upset top-seeded Russian Dinara Safina in the quarter-finals, rallying from a set down.
She had her chances against Zvonareva in both sets. She failed to convert two break points in the ninth game to extend the first set, and also had three break chances in the eighth game of the second.
“A wasted match” was the despondent Azarenka’s assessment as she bemoaned her 37 unforced errors.
Despite the defeat, the 11th-ranked Azarenka is expected to break into the top 10 when the new WTA rankings are released tomorrow.
She and Zvonareva were to be back on the same side of the net yesterday, contesting the women’s doubles final.
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