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BEIJING. — Novak Djokovic’s China Open tennis tournament charge showed no sign of slowing as he destroyed towering American number one John Isner 6-2, 6-2 to reach the semi-finals in a lightning 52 minutes yesterday.

The top-ranked Serb brushed off the 6 feet 10 inch (2.08 metre) Isner to clock up his 27th straight victory at a tournament where he has never been beaten and has now won 23 sets in a row.

The lop-sided defeat was almost embarrassing for the 13th-ranked Isner, clocking in a shade quicker than Djokovic’s similar straight-sets humiliation of China’s 219th-ranked Zhang Ze in the previous round.

Djokovic finished off Isner with a service winner on his first match point to move past Jimmy Connors and into sole second place for best unbeaten starts at a tournament, behind Nadal’s 31 at the French Open. Despite the American burying 85 percent of his trademark big first serves in the first set, Djokovic was sending them back more often than not and moving his opponent around the court.

“You can always improve. I guess everybody’s different. Just depends from your character or your approach to tennis and generally to everyday commitments,” he said.

“I thought I should always try to improve in every possible occasion. Every time I’m on the court I see things I can be better on. That’s one of the reasons that I keep on getting that motivation to move on.

“Today was a great match. Obviously the fact that he served that high of a first percentage of serves in and I managed to break him twice says enough about the quality of the return that I had today. That was the key to win the match.” — AFP.