Medvedev to face Zverev at China Open semis

BEIJING - The men's second seed Daniil Medvedev and eighth seed Alexander Zverev beat their respective opponents to advance to the semifinals of China Open here on Monday.

World No 3 Medvedev of Russia disposed of Frenchman Ugo Humbert 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, while Germany's Zverev saw off Nicolas Jarry of Chile 6-1, 6-7(5), 6-3.

Medvedev expected an exciting match against Zverev.

"Against Sascha (Zverev), we played already four times this year, 16 times in total," he said.

"Many of our matches are going three sets, long tiebreaks, stuff like this, drama sometimes, whatever. (It) could be an interesting match," he said.

Medvedev is now leading 9-7 in his head-to-head record with Zverev.

The world No 3 Russian broke Humbert's service six times, while the latter broke four times throughout the 125-minute match.

Medvedev committed nine double faults, including two in a row, to concede his service game, the eighth of the second set.

He blamed the balls used in the match for his inconsistency.

"With these balls, it's kind of like playing on clay. The only big difference is that the bounce, which is not like on clay. So it's still different, but it's very slow," he said.

"I lost two times on my serve in the first set. I won it. I lost my serve in the third, I won it 6-1. Any other normal hard court with normal balls, no chance I win a match like this. Also no chance I lose so much my serve," he said.

The Russian solved his serving problems in the third set, making no double faults, and broke all Humbert's service games to win out.

"I'm kind of happy that I managed to raise my level in important moments," he said.

"It's great that I managed to still find in this tough match these moments of consistency, which is enough to win," he added.