Former world number one Rafa Nadal (picture) displayed more signs of a return to top form with a ruthless 6-2 6-1 hammering of Stan Wawrinka and was joined by Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray in the Shanghai Masters semi-finals yesterday.

World number one Djokovic, twice champion in Shanghai, was tested by Australian Bernard Tomic before winning 7-6 6-1 to stay on course for a ninth title of the year having picked up his eighth last week in Beijing.

Nadal, a winner of 14 grand slam titles, suffered a second-round defeat by Dustin Brown at Wimbledon and was ousted in the US Open third round by Fabio Fognini but has enjoyed a resurgence since arriving in China.

The 29-year-old Spaniard, seeded eighth in Shanghai, reached the final in Beijing last week and needed little more than an hour to breeze past French Open champion Wawrinka, who toiled for close to three hours late on Thursday to get past Marin Cilic.

“Being in the semi-finals of this tournament is a great result for me,” Nadal said.

“I hadn’t played the semi-finals on hard court all year and now I am playing two weeks in a row in the final rounds.”

Wawrinka avoided the ignominy of suffering a bagel in the second set by claiming the sixth game after his opponent had raced to 5-0 on the back of a nine-game winning run.

Nadal, hoping to grab one of the four remaining ATP World Tour Finals spots in London, will next meet Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga for a place in tomorrow’s title decider.

Tsonga got the better of South Africa’s Kevin Anderson in a gruelling 7-6 5-7 6-4 match between two of the circuit’s biggest hitters.

The Frenchman saved three set points during the tiebreaker and secured an early break in the deciding set to carry him through to the last four.

Djokovic will play Murray in the last four. The Briton yesterday beat Tomas Berdych 6-1 6-3.