MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Novak Djokovic is finding a higher gear in South Florida after a sluggish start to 2025.
Djokovic, gunning for his seventh Miami Open title, dispatched American Sebastian Korda 6-3, 7-6 (4) Thursday in 1 hour, 24 minutes in a quarterfinal match. The match was postponed from Wednesday night because the women’s quarterfinal between Jessica Pegula and Emma Raducanu ran past 11 p.m. and would have begun at about midnight, against new ATP rules.
Djokovic, 37, advanced to Friday’s semifinals and will face Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov. He is 12-1 against Dimitrov, who reached the tournament finals in 2024.
Djokovic, who won all six of his titles at the tournament’s previous venue at Key Biscayne, is going for his 100th professional title.
“I’m getting great support,” Djokovic said. “I feel I have a really good chance to go all the way here. … I’m playing the best I have in some time.”
With the Hard Rock Stadium fans cheering Djokovic and chanting his name despite him facing an American opponent, Djokovic rallied in the second set from 4-1 down to win in a tiebreaker.
He served an ace on match point and finished with an 83 first-service percentage against 24th-seeded Korda. Djokovic let out a yell after the victory and strummed his racket like a violin.
“One word — serve,″ Djokovic said when asked the key to his second-set surge. “I was serving very well. Best serving performance in a long time.”
Djokovic, who holds the all-time record with 24 Grand Slam titles, has been out of form this year, starting with an injury retirement at the Australian Open in January. Earlier this month, Djokovic lost his first match in the first leg of this “Sunshine Double” at Indian Wells to Botic Van De Zandschulp.
Korda, who grew up at the Bradenton, Florida, tennis academies and is the son of Grand Slam champion Petr Korda, had beaten a top-10 opponent in Stefanos Tsitsipas earlier in the tournament and played at a flawless level to build a 4-1 second-set lead before Djokovic found his phenomenal game.
In the first women’s semifinal, No. 1 seed Aryna Sabalenka routed sixth-seeded Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 6-2 in 71 minutes to advance to her first Miami Open final.
Paolini, the 2024 French Open finalist, spent some of the afternoon smirking at Sabalenka’s deft shotmaking, saying at one point, “What a day.”
Sabalenka, of Belarus, was efficient in converting four of her five break points and pounded 31 winners to just 12 unforced errors.
When Paolini tried to mount a comeback in the second set, closing to 4-2 and up a double-break point at 15-40, Sabalenka hit three open-court winners and an ace to close the game.
Paolini, in her best showing at the Miami Open, couldn’t match the brilliance of Sabalenka, who hasn’t dropped a set so far in the tournament.
“I think I was so focused and everything went smoothly,” Sabalenka said.
Sabalenka will face the winner of Thursday night’s semifinal between Pegula and teen Alexandra Eala of the Philippines.
Asked if she would watch the match or go out in Miami, where she now lives, Sabalenka said, “I usually go for dinner, but other than that, it’s always tennis on my TV, actually. I’m actually enjoying, like, watching tennis lately. That’s crazy. I’m getting old.”
In the day’s first men’s quarterfinal, unseeded 19-year-old Jakub Mensik beat 17th-seeded Arthur Fils 7-6 (7-5), 6-1. Mensik advanced to his first semifinal at an ATP 1000-point level event.
Mensik, of the Czech Republic, will face third-seeded American Taylor Fritz on Friday. Fritz squeaked out a two-hour, 44-minute marathon Thursday night over No. 29 Matteo Berrettini 7-5, 6-7 (7), 7-5.
Fritz squandered six match points in the second set against the Italian, including in the tiebreaker, but survived in the third set to make his first Miami Open final.
“Now I can sleep tonight and not worry about the chances I blew,” said Fritz, who lives in Miami. “You have two options — one of them is to regroup.”
