Tennis-Open-Djokovic beats Ferrer

Novak Djokovic (picture) survived a late bout of nerves to beat Spanish fifth seed David Ferrer 6-0 6-3 7-5 and reach the Australian Open semi-finals.

The Serbian third seed missed four match points and was broken when serving for victory but recovered to set up a semi-final against either world number one Roger Federer or American 12th seed James Blake.

Ferrer had won three of their previous five meetings but a near flawless Djokovic was in a different class early on, racing through the first two sets and taking a 5-3 lead in the third.

As the nerves set in, however, Ferrer saved four match points in the ninth game and broke back for 5-5 but Djokovic broke again and saved a break point before serving out for victory to reach his fourth grand slam semi-final in a row.