A day after Nadal went out of the Madrid Masters, Top seed Novak Djokovic too went out losing in straight sets to fellow countryman Janko Tipsarevic. The defending champion who has been a vocal critic of the blue clay along with Rafael Nadal never looked at home on the slippery courts. The Seventh seed Tipsarevic beat Djokovic 7-6(2), 6-3.

Novak Djokovic exits Madrid Open 2012

The first set saw Djokovic miss four break points and in the tie break Djokovic quickly fell behind 4-0 including a double fault. Tipsarevic wrapped up the tie breaker at 7-2. The second set saw Tipsarevic earn his first break point opportunity at 3-2 and immediately broke on a forehand error from Djokovic. Djokovic showed fighting spirit by saving three match points at 0-40 at 2-5 coming up with big serves. Serving for the match, Tipsarevic fought off three break points before sealing the win at 6-3. This was his second win over Djokovic after ATP Tour Finals. He will next face Federer.

Federer beat familiar opponent David Ferrer 6-4, 6-4. This was 13 wins in 13 meetings over the Spaniard. Ferrer’s serve proved to be a major weakness in his encounter against Federer. He committed seven double faults including two consecutive double faults to lose serve at 1-1 in the first set. On the other hand Federer never faced a break point on serve, serving very high percentage and losing only six points on serve. The second set saw Ferrer fight hard at 4-4 but dropped serve to 4-5 before Federer served out the match.

The other semi final will feature Czech Thomas Berdych and Argentine Del Potro. Berdych beat Verdasco 6-1, 6-2. Verdasco quickly came down to earth after his stunning victory over World No.2 Nadal the previous day. The Spaniard seemed emotionally drained and was easily beaten by the hard hitting Berdych. Del Potro beat Dolgopolov 6-3, 6-4 to advance to the semi final.

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