Novak Djokovic looks on course to reach his third Cincinnati Masters final as he plays Radek Stepanek in the last sixteen.
Djokovic gave American teenager Ryan Harrison a taste of what it takes to reach the summit of men’s tennis on Wednesday night with a convincing 6-2, 6-3 win. However the world number one was not completely happy with his performance after a sluggish start which saw five breaks in the opening six games.
"It was a slow start, not a good start. I was serving not so great today. I think everything else was quite good," Djokovic told the press. "From the baseline I wasn't making a lot of unforced errors. I was returning a lot of balls in and played quite good really for the opening match."
The conditions in Cincinnati have helped Djokovic in the past, favouring his attacking tennis from the back of the court and he scored wins over Rafa Nadal in 2008 and 2009 on the way to reaching this final. However they take a little while to adjust to.
"It's totally different conditions from Montreal, so you got to get used to that,” Djokovic explained. “It's much faster here. Ball flies through the air faster, so it's really hard to control."
Those conditions will be more helpful to Stepanek’s serve-volley tennis today. The in-form Czech took out John Isner earlier this week and is enjoying a fine month having won the Washington title a fortnight ago.
However Djokovic has won five of their six career matches and it will take some performance from Stepanek to stop him today.
