But he faces a stern test against Nishikori, who has won the title for the past two years, and will he hoping his 14-match unbeaten run at the Barcelona event leads to a hat-trick of trophies.
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The second seed will face either eight-time victor Rafael Nadal or Philipp Kohlschreiber on Sunday.
“I will have to play my best”, he said. “I had to be aggressive with his second serve, so I tried to step in more and it worked well”.
The second-seeded Kerber easily overcame seventh-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain 6-2, 6-4 in Friday’s quarterfinals, needing just 29 minutes to win the first set and 72 minutes overall.
Halep finished 2015 as No. 2 in the world but the Romanian has dropped to No. 6 and will fall further after the latest loss.
The Spaniard who only last week won a record ninth Monte Carlo Masters crown, was barely troubled and clinically saw off the German’s challenge winning through 6-3, 6-3.
He would not be denied, though, sealing victory after two hours when Nishikori slapped a forehand into the net.
Nishikori got back in the match after Nadal misjudged a ball that he thought was going wide when he could have smashed it. The ball fell in, and Nishikori broke Nadal with an unreachable drop shot for 4-3.
Nadal endured a surprising slump in the second set and found himself a break down at 4-2, before recovering in game 10 when Fognini failed to serve out for the set. Yet that triumph was only secured after Nishikori had suffered an injury when a set to the good, and with the Japanese star also having come out on top in Toronto previous year, there was plenty of reason to expect a tightly fought duel, despite Nadal’s 8-1 head-to-head edge.
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Nadal kept applying pressure and was even rewarded with four break points but he squandered all of them and then the set was once more tied at 4-4.
