Rafael Nadal eliminated defending champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 7-5, 7-5 with his best tennis of the week to set up a semifinal against Novak Djokovic at the Paris Masters Friday. Djokovic made the Paris last four for the first time by beating French Open runner-up Robin Soderling 6-4, 1-6, 6-3. Gael Monfils gave French fans hope of another home champion by reaching his first Paris semifinals in defeating Marin Cilic 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. Monfils awaits the winner of the late quarterfinal between US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro and Radek Stepanek. Nadal, whose year has been disrupted by injuries, ended Tsonga's hopes of qualifying for the eight-man ATP World Tour Finals in London next week. Spain's Fernando Verdasco completed the draw. “It was a very important victory for me,” Nadal said. “It's probably the first big victory after I came back from injury.” Nadal returned to competition in October after a month off with a pulled stomach muscle. He reached the semifinals at Beijing, then the final at Shanghai where he lost to Nikolay Davydenko. His last title on the tour was in April at the Rome Masters. Although Nadal leads Djokovic 14-5 on head to head, the Spaniard was impressed by the Serb's victory over top-ranked Roger Federer in the Swiss Indoors final last week. “He is the best player in this part of the season,” Nadal said. “It's going to be a good test. I know he is the favorite on this kind of surface.” Third-ranked Djokovic, for his part, gave No. 2 Nadal due respect. “(Nadal) is a big champion and plays really well on all surfaces. He is a big fighter,” Djokovic said. The ninth-seeded Soderling also fell out of contention for the ATP finals with his loss. Djokovic is looking for his fifth title of the year in Paris. “It looked tense (against Soderling) because physically I didn't really feel 100 percent,” said Djokovic, who clinched his fifth straight win against the Swede. “I just hope I can recover for the upcoming challenge.” Soderling recovered from a break down to level at 4-4 but was immediately lost his serve to love and broke his racket in disgust after Djokovic went on to take the set. Soderling's strong forehands put him 2-0 up in the second set and the Swede broke again before serving out the set. The players held their serves in a tense third until the eighth game, when Soderling made two unforced errors and double-faulted to give Djokovic three break points. Soderling sent a backhand into the net on the second and Djokovic held on. Monfils served 13 aces and entertained his home crowd with spectacular winners from all parts of the court on his way to victory over Croatia's Cilic in 2 hours, 22 minutes. “He's got tall legs and I had to play some drop shots to make him move,” said Monfils.
