Djokovic dominates Nishikori, reaches Olympics medal rounds

Tokyo: Kei Nishikori thought he was playing well. Then he played Novak Djokovic.

The top-ranked Serb never gave Nishikori a chance in a 6-2, 6-0 rout of the home favorite from Japan to reach the semifinals of the tennis tournament at the Tokyo Olympics on Thursday.

"He was defending amazing today everything deep and I was trying to stay with him but I couldn't," Nishikori said.

"I thought I was playing OK but my serving was bad today and he was attacking every (time)."

The dominant performance advanced Djokovic into the medal rounds and more importantly moved him one step closer to finishing off this segment of his Golden Slam bid.

In the women's tournament, 12th-ranked Belinda Bencic of Switzerland beat Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan 7-6 (2), 4-6, 6-3 to reach the gold-medal match. Djokovic will next face either Alexander Zverev of Germany or Jeremy Chardy of France. The other semifinal match will feature Karen Khachanov of ROC against Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain. Khachanov beat Ugo Humbert of France 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-3 and Carreno Busta defeated second-seeded Daniil Medvedev of ROC 6-2, 7-6 (5).

Djokovic, who has already won the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon this year, needs the Tokyo Games title and the U.S. Open trophy to become the first man to achieve the

Golden Slam.