Novak Djokovic battled past a spirited Zizou Bergs 6-3, 7-5 on Thursday to reach the Shanghai Masters semi-finals for a 10th time, setting up a clash with surprise package and the world No 204, Valentin Vacherot.<\/p>\n
In challenging conditions, Djokovic was made to work harder than the scoreline suggests by his Belgian opponent, who registered more winners than the four-time champion but was undone by unforced errors.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst encounter with Bergs, a great guy. Obviously a lot of firepower in his game. He played a good game,\u201d Djokovic said. \u201cI was a little bit too passive. Just very challenging conditions these days for all the players. Just trying to stay alive on the court and glad to overcome this hurdle.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the opening set, Bergs showed remarkable resilience by saving five set points to frustrate Djokovic, before the Serbian finally closed it out with an unreturned serve. The second set proved even more gruelling, with both players serving well but treating the crowd to breathtaking rallies that left Djokovic hunched over his racquet on several occasions.<\/p>\n
The highlight came during one extraordinary rally where the fourth seed gave Bergs five golden opportunities to seal the point with overhead shots and volleys at the net, only to somehow emerge victorious and bring the crowd to its feet. Djokovic eventually sealed victory on his third match point, advancing to face Vacherot in what promises to be an intriguing semi-final clash. \u201cAmazing story for him. This tournament has taken out top players of the world \u2026 it\u2019s really impressive what he\u2019s doing,\u201d Djokovic said on his next opponent.<\/p>\n
Vacherot pulled off a huge upset, stunning the 10th seed, Holger Rune, 2-6, 7-6 (4), 6-4 to become the second-lowest ranked player ever to reach an ATP Masters semi-final. The Mon\u00e9gasque qualifier\u2019s remarkable run will see him crack the top 100 next week after spending half of last year sidelined with injury, but even playing in Shanghai was a question mark when he arrived.<\/p>\n
Valentin Vacherot after defeating Holger Rune. Photograph: Andy Wong\/AP<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t even come as a qualifier, I came as an alternate. I wasn\u2019t sure to even play the qualifier,\u201d Vacherot said. \u201cComing back from six months out is always not easy. You cannot just come back and win tournaments right and left. You\u2019ve just got to fight your way through a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vacherot\u2019s stunning journey in Shanghai, which now includes wins over four seeds, looked doomed early on as Rune raced through a physically demanding opening set while the underdog felt his \u201clungs were screaming\u201d. But the tide turned dramatically in the second-set tiebreak when Vacherot produced a stunning backhand crosscourt winner to take a 5-4 lead.<\/p>\n
Rune crashed his next shot into the net and could only watch as Vacherot fired a forehand winner down the line on set point to level the match. Rune struggled physically in the decider, requiring the trainer twice to massage his leg. Vacherot then capitalised to complete a memorable victory in a contest lasting a minute shy of three hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would mean a lot to play at least one of the guys of the \u2018Big Three\u2019 in my career,\u201d Vacherot said on playing Djokovic. Vacherot\u2019s cousin, Arthur Rinderknech, is also in the quarter-finals, with the Frenchman set to play F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime on Friday.<\/p>\n
Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina, meanwhile, will renew their rivalry in the quarter-finals of the Wuhan Open.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Sport in Focus<\/p>\n Sign up to Sport in Focus<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Both reached the last eight in China with straight-sets victories, three-time champion Sabalenka continuing her unbeaten record at the tournament with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Liudmila Samsonova and eighth seed Rybakina defeating Linda Noskova 6-3 6-4. Victory over Noskova was also a boost to Rybakina\u2019s hopes of qualifyig for the WTA Finals, although Jasmine Paolini and Jessica Pegula, who sit ahead of her in the standings, also both won.<\/p>\n Paolini benefited from the retirement through injury of opponent Clara Tauson in the third set of their contest and will next face second seed Iga Swiatek, who defeated Belinda Bencic 7-6 (2), 6-4.<\/p>\n Peugla, meanwhile, was taken the distance again in a 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 victory over ninth seed Ekaterina Alexandrova. \u201cI can\u2019t remember the last time I played two sets,\u201d said the American. \u201cBut I\u2019ve been competing really hard and I\u2019ve been playing a lot of really good players.\u201d<\/p>\n She was joined in the quarter-finals by third seed Coco Gauff, who eased to a 6-3, 6-2 win over home hope Zhang Shuai.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic battled past a spirited Zizou Bergs 6-3, 7-5 on Thursday to reach the Shanghai Masters semi-finals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-200751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
This will be a 13th meeting between them \u2013 with Sabalenka leading 7-5 \u2013 but Rybakina won their last match comfortably in Cincinnati in August.<\/p>\n