Alex de Minaur

MONTE CARLO - Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic defeated Australian Alex de Minaur 7-5, 6-4 on Friday to advance to the semi-finals of the Monte Carlo Masters tournament.

Djokovic, who won after two hours and five minutes of play, will on Saturday face the winner of the tie between Ugo Humbert of France and Casper Ruud of Norway.

Two-time champion Stefanos Tsitsipas eased into the Monte Carlo Masters semifinals on Friday with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Karen Khachanov.

The 12th-ranked Greek player dropped only five points on his first serve and hit 20 winners.

He will next face either Jannik Sinner or Holger Rune for a spot in the final at the clay-court event.

MONTE CARLO - Serbia's Novak Djokovic, the world number one in men's tennis singles, is through to the quarter-finals of the Monte Carlo Masters after a 7-5, 6-3 win over Italian Lorenzo Musetti in the third round on Thursday.

ACAPULCO - Serbian tennis player Miomir Kecmanovic lost 6-2, 6-2 to Briton Jack Draper in the quarter-finals of the ATP tournament in Acapulco on Friday.

Draper, who won after just 83 minutes of play, will next face Australian Alex de Minaur, who beat Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas 1-6, 6-3, 6-3.

The prize money in Acapulco is 2,206,080 dollars.

Three contenders for the men's singles title at the Australian Open, which starts on Sunday:

ALEXANDER ZVEREV (GERMANY)

Ranking: 6

Djokovic remains first with 12.113 points, while Daniil Medvedev follows with 10.053 points.
There was no change in the Top 10, so Rafael Nadal, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev, Andrei Rublev, Roger Federer, Matteo Berrettini and Roberto Bautista Agut are among the top ten.

Grigor Dimitrov will start his participation in the Masters tournament in Madrid with a match against the world №53 Lloyd Harris from South Africa.

This will be the first clash between the two, who have never met on the court so far.

For Dimitrov, this will be the first match after his loss to Rafael Nadal in the 1/8 finals of the Masters in Monte Carlo.

Greek fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas was left surprised by the ease with which he stormed past veteran Frenchman Gilles Simon during a 6-1 6-2 6-1 thrashing to open his Australian Open campaign on Tuesday.

Greece started off at the ATP Cup in Melbourne with a narrow loss to host Australia, despite the great efforts by world number six Stefanos Tsitsipas.

The Greek tennis star levelled the Group B tie for Greece against Australia with a 6-3 7-5 win over Alex de Minaur in front of a raucous crowd after John Millman gave the hosts the lead with a 6-2 6-3 win over Michalis Pervolarakis.

Greece has been drawn in the same group as Spain and Australia in the group stage of the ATP Cup in Melbourne next month after the draw was made on Friday.

The Greek men's national team has relatively little depth beneath world number 6 Stefanos Tsitsipas and will be hard pushed against Rafael Nadal's Spain in Group B of the tournament.