Novak Djokovic bursts into Tel Aviv Open final with impressive win over Roman Safiullin

Novak Djokoic qualified for the Tel Aviv Open final with an impressive victory over Roman Safiullin. The Serb came through a tough second set to contest his third final of the year with a 6-1, 7-6 (7-3) win over the Russian.

The former world number one flew off the blocks and in the blink of an eye was leading the first set 4-0. His Russian opponent, who was facing the tennis legend for the first time, felt the pressure as he seemed to be rushing his shots and tried to finish the points fairly quickly.

To have a chance of defeating Djokovic, it is essential that the opponents try to take his time and not allow him to settle. However, this approach resulted in 13 unforced errors for the 25-year-old, compared to just three for the world number six, who finished the first set 6-1 in less than half an hour.

Despite making 79% of his first serves, Safiullin won just over 50% of his first serves and a low 17% of his second delivery, which is a bad stat against anyone, and still least one of the best of all time. To his credit, the world number 104 won the opener of the second set with a sweet volley to end the game.

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The pair stayed on serve for the first four games of the set, and the Serb let out a roar en route to holding serve to make it two games apiece. Safiullin, playing in his second semi-final of the season, was beginning to find more consistency with his aggressive groundstrokes as he gained confidence.

He was also making better use of his serve as his first serve percentage increased to over 60%. After the Russian took a 3-2 lead, to the gasp of the crowd, he fell in the next game when he was 15-15 on Djokovic's serve but still managed to finish return and avoid injury.

He continued to apply pressure on his opponent's serve and Safiullin missed an opportunity to earn his first break point after firing a backhand wide. However, one quickly followed a lucky net cord and a missed backhand from Djokovic forced him to save a break point for the first time in the match, which he did with an ace categorical to reduce it to two.

NOT TO MISS

After another failed backhand, Djokovic was forced to save another break point and again an ace did the trick. A little more clutch serve allowed Djokovic to hold serve to level the second set at 3-3. In the ninth game of the set, after trailing 40-15, Djokovic forced his opponent back to two.

After the Serb dug in a break point, a deep return created the point and pushed his opponent on the back foot, he finished the point at the net to advance 5-4 and serve for the game. But Djokovic unexpectedly lost his serve, completed by a double fault on a break point. After a quick hold, the tennis legend found himself serving to stay in the set and force a tie-break, which he completed without a hitch.

At 2-1 in the tie-break, Safiullin, who had been very solid throughout the second set, started to unravel as the Russian played a provisional forehand that lasted long, before serving a double untimely foul to give Djokovic a 4-1 lead. There were no more errors from Djokovic as an ace sealed a 7-3 tiebreak victory to register another important victory. He will face 2014 US Open winner Marin Cilic or Frenchman Constant Lestienne in tomorrow's final.