Novak Djokovic continued his good show against Australia’s Alex de Minaur with a 7-5, 6-4 win in the quarterfinal of the Monte Carlo Masters on Thursday. Djokovic had a chance to wrap up the opening set at 5-4 (advantage) but could not grab it.

However, the Serbian broke the Australian’s serve in the 12th game of the opening set. The second set was a roller-coaster, with both players breaking each other’s serve on a couple of occasions.

“It was tough for both of us. He is one of the quickest players on Tour. He gets a lot of balls back that normally 99 per cent of other players don’t. He did not surprise me with several passing shots. Particularly in the second set when I was up a break,” Djokovic said.

“But he said at the net it was ugly. The second set I think it was. We didn’t play at the high level and made a lot of unforced errors, him and I, and a lot of breaks of serve. It is kind of expected on clay but maybe not this many. But a win is a win and I am happy to be through.”

With this win, Djokovic improved his H2H record against Alex de Minaur to 2-1. The World No.1 was delighted to make it to the last four of the tournament.

“I am very happy to be back in the semis. It has been a while,” Djokovic said. “I love this tournament. I love this club as well, I have been training at this club for many years. The past seven, eight years has been tough for me to win seven or eight matches consecutively, but here we are, another semis.”

Djokovic has made it to record-breaking 77th ATP Masters 1000 semi-final. He will take on Casper Ruud on Friday in the semis.