Djokovic Remains The Man To Beat In Melbourne

Novak Djokovic is through to his fifth Australian Open Semi-final. Surprised? Not really, this is the man who has been on the cusp of domination in men’s tennis over the last few years.



At 27 Djokovic is just one Grand Slam away from joining the likes of Andre Agassi, Ivan Lendl and Jimmy Connors on eight majors. At this stage of the tournament the stats certainly make good reading for the Serb, every time Djokovic has reached the last four in Melbourne he has gone on to win the tournament.

Djokovic is still yet to drop a set in this year's competition



Of course it’s no guarantee, and if Djokovic is to win his eighth major title in the next few days he will have to overcome last year’s champion Stanislas Wawrinka, the man who stopped him last year, before a potential final with either Andy Murray or Tomas Berdych. Nevertheless it would take a brave soul to bet against sensational Serb.

For the opening set his quarter-final victory over giant Canadian Milos Raonic was far from vintage Djokovic, however once a first set tie break was in the bag he quickly raced to a 7-6(5) 6-4 6-2 victory in just 2 hours

At 24 Raonic is regarded as one of the game’s big prospects. At 6ft 6 that’s in more ways than one, however against Djokovic the Canadian appeared a little one dimensional and after dropping the first set his chances were significantly reduced.

For the first hour or so Djokovic was not at his best, his timing was off and there were traces of anxiety as Raonic’s serve prevented the world number one from building up any sort of rhythm from the back of the court.

Djokovic, regarded as the best returner in the game, knew only too well about this, a few weeks ago he had lost to another giant sever Ivo Karlovic at a tournament in Doha, this was different though and after taking the first set on a tie break he set about unpicking the Raonic serve.

Just like flicking on a light switch Djokovic was suddenly at his ruthless best, breaking Raonic in the first game of the second set to put the outcome in little doubt. The fact that Raonic didn’t even reach break point over the course of the match spoke volumes about how professional Djokovic was on his own serve, while in the baseline exchanges the Canadian’s game never looked like matching up to that of the Serb.

The single break was all that was required for Djokovic to convincingly take the second set, Raonic had never come back from two sets down in his career and that never looked like happening here as he was broke twice in the third to concede the match.

Djokovic will next be in action on Friday where he will face Wawrinka in a repeat of last year’s epic quarter final, which the Swiss won. Tomorrow its Murray verses Berdych in the first semi-final as the first slam of the year reaches its climax.