ranked Novak Djokovic defeated Nicolas Almagro 6-3, 6-4, winning the final three games of the match to reach the BNP Paribas Open semifinals Thursday. Djokovic, the defending champion, improved to 16-1 against Spanish opponents since the start of 2011, although Almagro made him work for it on another 80-degree Fahrenheit (27 C) day at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Almagro held with a backhand winner down the line to go up 4-3 in the second set. Djokovic served at 40-love in the next game before Almagro rallied to reach deuce. Djokovic held, then broke Almagro in the next game and served out the match with a 40-love game that ended with his own backhand down the line. American John Isner defeated Gilles Simon of France 6-3, 1-6, 7-5 to set up a semifinal against Djokovic, who's coming off his second straight Australian Open victory. In the women's draw, Ana Ivanovic earned a spot in the semifinals with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Marion Bartoli, the 16th-ranked Serb's second straight win over a top-10 player. She will play Maria Sharapova, who needed more than three hours to subdue fellow Russian Maria Kirilenko, 3-6, 7-5, 6-2. Sharapova broke Kirilenko three times in the final set, which was briefly interrupted when Kirilenko's father-coach came on court with her trailing 4-0. The chair umpire turned him away because she didn't first ask permission. Kirilenko also was penalized a point for hindrance in the second set after she tapped her racket on the court three times during a point. “It's one thing if you do it once, but I think she did it three or four times,” Sharapova said. “It's not like a hockey puck or something. She forgot, I think, the sport.”
