Novak Djokovic: My best performance

Novak Djokovic said he is getting better and better after easing into the Tokyo Olympics menrsquos tennis semifinals on Thursday with a straightsets thrashing of Japanese hope Kei NishikoriThe World No 1 chasing a calendar Golden Grand Slam ended home interest in the tennis with a ruthless 62 60 victory in only 70 minutesDjokovic 34 has never won the Olympic singles title with a bronze medal in 2008 his best result at the Games but will face Alexander Zverev in the Last fourldquoIrsquom very happy my best performance in the tournamentrdquo said the top seed ldquoMatches are not getting easier but my level of tennis is getting better and better Irsquove done that many many times in my career I know that Irsquom the kind of player that the further the tournament goes the better Irsquom feeling on the courtrdquoThe Serb who has already captured the Australian Open French Open and Wimbledon titles this season was never in trouble against Nishikori who made 16 unforced errorsThe former World No 4 did save two match points in the final game but Djokovic made no mistake on the next opportunity The quarterfinal was played in cooler conditions than earlier in the tournament after Djokovic lobbied organisers to change the schedule moving the dayrsquos start time from 11am local time to 3pmldquoIt was fantastic Playing after five pm is completely differentrdquo said DjokovicldquoObviously there is a little bit of a breeze but still very very humid you sweat a lot but you donrsquot have the heat you donrsquot have the sun that in combination with the humidity is just brutalrdquoMeanwhile World No 2 Daniil Medvedev was knocked out by Spainrsquos Pablo Carreno Busta in the quarterfinals Russian Medvedev who was hoping to meet Djokovic in the final paid for an errorstrewn display with a 26 67 lossFognini sorry for homophobic slurItalian tennis player Fabio Fognini has apologised for yelling at himself with a homophobic slur during a loss in the Olympic tennis event Fognini used the offensive Italian word repeatedly during the threeset loss to Russian player Daniil Medvedev in the third round on Wednesday Fognini Instagrammed on Thursday that the extremely hot conditions ldquoaffected his headrdquo and that he used a really stupid expression toward himself ldquoObviously I didnrsquot want to offend anyonersquos feelingsrdquo Fognini said ldquoI love the LGBT community and I apologise for the nonsense that I let outrdquoThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever