Djokovic, Murray gain q’finals but Fish falls

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Novak Djokovic was again below his best but managed to beat Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine, 7- 6 ( 5), 6- 3, at the Dubai Championships on Wednesday for his ninth straight win in 2012.

Andy Murray also made it through to the quarterfinals with a 6- 3, 6- 4 win over Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland, but out-of-form American Mardy Fish went out, beaten 6-2, 7-6 (0) by Mikhail Youzhny.

The top-ranked Djokovic looked rusty at times in his opening win against Cedrik- Marcel Stebe, and his victory over Stakhovsky was anything but routine.

Stakhovsky was 4-3 up in the first-set tiebreaker but two costly unforced errors let Djokovic off the hook and the Serb took the set when the 74th- ranked Ukrainian hit a forehand long.

D jokov ic was 3-1 down in the second set but reeled off five straight games to set up a quarterfinal against fellow Serb Janko Tipsarevic, who beat Flavio Cipolla of Italy, 6-7 (2), 6-1, 6-1.

Djokovic, who won the Australian Open last month for his third Grand Slam title in a row, said his experience was the key in his win over Stakhovsky.

“Let’s say it’s probably the fact that the difference between the top players and maybe the lower- ranked players is actually those moments, and managing to keep your composure and cope with the pressure and just focus, have an extra focus, mental strength,” he said.

“There is not much difference in the shots. We don’t hit, I don’t know, 10 miles stronger than our opponents. It’s just everybody is practicing, and we all took the game to another level. There is a lot of great players on the tour.”

Murray, who complained of feeling unwell in his opening round victory against German qualifier Michael Berrer, looked more like the player that reached the Australian Open semifinals. He broke the 185th- ranked Chiudinelli early in the first set and moved him around the court with ease. He ended the first set with an ace.

The second set was closer as both players held serve for the first eight games. But Murray broke Chiudinelli to go up 5-4 and won the match with an unreturnable serve.