Agence France-Presse
Madrid, May 8: World No. 1 Novak Djokovic set-up a mouth-watering Madrid Masters final showdown against defending champion Andy Murray by seeing off Japan’s Kei Nishikori 6-3 7-6 (7-4) here Saturday evening.
Murray, the second seed, earlier registered just his second ever win over Rafael Nadal on clay to make the summit clash with a 7-5, 6-4 victory.
Djokovic has yet to drop a set in the Spanish capital this week but he was nearly caught cold by the windy conditions as he had to battle back from 0-40 down in the first game with some fine serving.
The Serb slowly began to find his rhythm and broke through in the eighth game as Nishikori pulled a forehand wide before serving out for the set.
Djokovic looked set to seal victory comfortably as he led 40-0 at 5-4 in the second set, but the Japanese star dug
deep, saving the three match points and then a fourth as he broke back before forcing the tie-break.
However, the top seed bounced back to take the breaker 7-4 and set up his first meeting with Murray in a Masters series final on clay.
Djokovic will look to extend his 22-9 head-to-head record against Murray, exactly 10 years on from their very first encounter in the Madrid third round.
Meanwhile Saturday’s defeat brought to an end Nadal’s 13-match winning run on the European clay this season after looking back to his best on his favoured surface with victories in Monte Carlo and Barcelona in recent weeks.