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Nishikori crushed in Montreal Masters semifinals

Halep will play for her 12th career title and fourth of the year in Monday’s championship match against the victor of a later semi-final between Swiss teen Belinda Bencic and world number one Serena Williams.

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Djokoic survived two match points for the first time since 2012 in Shanghai against Andy Murray.

With a victory on Sunday Djokovic would claim a record-tying fifth Masters 1000 title the season. Chardy entered the match as a player who has not really made much noise in the bigger tournaments during his career.

But Djokovic, fresh from his own feat of escapology after denying Ernests Gulbis two match points in the last eight, was in no mood for sentiment.

His opponent, world No. 1 Novak Djokovic, is chasing his fourth trophy in Canada. “Every time I play against him, I have a lot of problems”.

He will face Andy Murray, who beat defending champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-4, 6-4 in a late quarter-final.

“I was close in Madrid, but today I was dominating everything”, said Nishikori. However, in a match that saw three tiebreakers, Chardy advanced to the semifinals where he will face Djokovic.

Nishikori notched a break point in each set to pick up the straight-set win.

It was all calm on centre court where Djokovic got off to a sluggish start but after breaking to go up 3-2 the 28-year-old Serb was in complete control with the Sock managing just a single break chance, which he was unable to convert. “At the beginning of the first set I was okay, but after that I wasn’t the same player”.

The contest was decided at 4-2 in the opening set, when Nishikori broke Murray’s serve, only to see the Scotsman roar back from an 0-40 deficit in the next game to win five straight points for a 5-3 lead.

“Speaking about the match to ATP World Tour he said, “[Nadal] wasn’t making many first serves tonight, so I knew I had to be more aggressive on the second serve”, said Nishikori.

But that one also went to a decider, with the French challenger earning two match points and converting on the first.

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His lack of movement became apparent in the second set and the 2009 and 2010 champion Murray took advantage to break three times to seal victory in just 65 minutes.

Nishikori finally solves Nadal