Nadal stops Safin to reach China semi-finals

Rafael Nadal stopped Marat Safin's Beijing revival in its tracks yesterday with a 6-3 6-1 victory to reach the semi-finals of the China Open.

Spain's Nadal, playing his first tournament since returning from an abdominal injury, dominated a brief but richly entertaining encounter against fellow former world number one Safin, who is retiring at the end of the season.

Elena Dementieva earlier joined the exodus of top women's seeds when she was upset 7-5 6-3 by Agnieszka Radwanska in the quarter-finals of the WTA's new "crown jewel" tournament.

Safin had served up 12 aces in his upset of Fernando Gonzalez on Thursday but Nadal faced only one from the big Russian in front of a packed house.

Robbed of his serve, no amount of racket twirling and delicate net play could keep Safin in the match and Nadal converted his one break point in the first set and raced away with the second.

Nadal will play Marin Cilic for a place in his first final since May today after the Croatian beat Nikolay Davydenko 6-4 6-4 in the first match on centre court.

Second seed Novak Djokovic reached the last four by beating Fernando Verdasco 6-3 1-6 6-1 to move within one victory of reclaiming the world no.3 ranking.

Andy Murray's withdrawal from next week's Shanghai Masters means Djokovic just has to reach the final in Beijing to move above the Briton in the rankings on Oct. 19. To reach his eighth tour final of the year, Djokovic will have to get past Robin Soderling, who defeated Ivan Ljubicic 7-6 6-4.

Meanwhile, Nadia Petrova ended Chinese Peng Shuai's giant-killing run, winning 6-7 6-3 6-2 to succeed where Jelena Jankovic and Maria Sharapova failed earlier in the week.

She will next play the 2006 China Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, who recorded a 6-3 6-3 victory over fellow Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.