World No. 1 Novak Djokovic moved into the semifinals of the Sony Ericsson Open after holding off a brave second set effort from Spain's David Ferrer to win 6-2, 7-6 Thursday. Djokovic will face Argentine Juan Monaco for a place in the final after he celebrated his 28th birthday with a 6-1, 6-3 win over American Mardy Fish Thursday. Serbian Djokovic crusied through the first set in just 32 minutes and broke Ferrer's first serve of the second set but any notion of a swift and easy win quickly vanished. Ferrer broke back straight away and then held his own in the set before Djokovic, making his opponent scurry around the baseline, broke to go 5-4 up. Even then, the Spaniard found the resolve to break back and force the game into a tie-break but, true to form, Djokovic raised his game a notch and wrapped it up 7-1 to seal the win. Monaco, who beat American Andy Roddick in the previous round, will head into Friday's semifinal in confident mood. The 21st seed won 71 percent of his first serve points and proved too much for eighth seed Fish, who did not cause problems for his opponent until breaking to go 3-3 in the second set. But Monaco closed out the match in one hour and 22 minutes and was clearly delighted to have given himself a chance of reaching what would be the biggest final of his career. Friday's other semifinal features Britain's Andy Murray against Rafa Nadal. On the women's side a disputed line call on match point meant Maria Sharapova's win over Caroline Wozniacki in the semifinal Thursday ended in ill feeling. Sharapova won the disputed final point after an overrule by the umpire, edging Wozniacki 4-6, 6-2, 6-4. “You don't want it to end that way,” Sharapova said. At 40-30 in the last game, Sharapova hit a second serve that the linesman called long, which would have been a double-fault, but umpire Kader Nouni immediately reversed the ruling and ordered the point replayed. The call couldn't be reviewed because Wozniacki had no challenges left, although TV replays showed Nouni was correct to overrule. Sharapova was awarded two serves and took advantage with a big first serve to set up an overhead slam for the victory. Wozniacki, angry about the overrule, declined to shake Nouni's hand and had words with him as she walked to the exit. With the departure of defending champion Victoria Azarenka, the tournament is guaranteed a first-time women's winner. Sharapova's opponent Saturday will be No. 5 Agnieszka Radwanska, who breezed past No.7 Marion Bartoli 6-4, 6-2. Radwanska's progress toward her first Key Biscayne final was interrupted briefly in the second set by a power outage that caused a delay of 20 minutes. Bartoli hurt her left thigh in the early going and limped through the rest of the match. Radwanska has not lost to any player this year, bar Victoria Azarenka, whose perfect record for 2012 was ended by Bartoli Wednesday. Sharapova will play in her second successive final and third this year. She was runner-up at the Australian Open in January and at Indian Wells two weeks ago.
