Beijing, Oct 9 (EFE; odds by IDS).– Spain’s Rafael Nadal rallied for a 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory here Friday over American Jack Sock to reach the China Open semifinals and give himself another chance to solve the riddle of Fabio Fognini, who has defeated the 14-time Grand Slam champion three times this season, most recently at last month’s U.S. Open.

Sock came out firing with his serve and forehand to take the opening set, but Nadal moved closer to the baseline in the second and that allowed him to dictate more rallies and even finish some points at the net.

In the final set, Sock put just 48 percent of his first serves in play and won only 33 percent of his second-serve points, a recipe for disaster against the Spanish great.

Next up for the third-seeded Nadal will be Fognini, who topped Uruguay’s Pablo Cuevas 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 on Friday and will look to maintain his recent edge over Nadal on Saturday afternoon.

“When you play against a great player, especially if you don’t play to your best, your chances are lower,” Nadal, who also lost to the Italian at clay-court events this year in Rio de Janeiro and Barcelona, said in explaining his struggles against that opponent.

The Spaniard still has a 5-3 career edge against the 28th-ranked Fognini, with one of those wins coming at this year’s Hamburg final.

Despite the recent losses, the eighth-ranked Nadal said he felt no particular tension ahead of their fifth head-to-head clash of the season.

“Fognini play better in the three matches that he beat me. I was not unhappy at all after the U.S. Open loss. I didn’t play a very bad match,” the Spaniard said of that third-round loss, when the Italian rallied from two sets down to pull off the upset.

Friday’s win marks the first time in more than a year that Nadal has reached the semifinals of a hard-court event, but the Spaniard saw no cause for celebration, saying he hoped to be in the final four of many more tournaments over the rest of his career.

With Nadal having won 50 times this year and winning a solid match against Sock in the clay, the odds of Fognini pulling an upset are 7/4  according to Pay-Per-Head leader IDS, located in Costa Rica. For a three-set upset against Nadal, the odds are closer to 9/2.

In other results Friday at the China Open, world No. 1 Novak Djokovic continued his domination at this tournament, an event he has won five of the past six years, by routing big-serving American John Isner 6-2, 6-2.

Next up for the Serbian top seed in Saturday night’s second semifinal will be Spanish fourth-seeded David Ferrer, who brushed aside Taiwanese wildcard Yen-Hsun Lu 6-3, 6-1.

In women’s singles on Friday, Spain’s Garbiñe Muguruza, the No. 5 seed, advanced to the semifinals with a 6-1, 7-5 victory over American qualifier Bethanie Mattek-Sands and will next take on fourth-seeded Pole Agnieszka Radwanska, a 6-1, 6-4 winner over Germany’s Angelique Kerber.

Saturday’s other women’s semifinal will pit sixth-seeded Serbian Ana Ivanovic, a 6-3, 7-5 winner over Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, against Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky, who defeated Italy’s Sara Errani 0-6, 6-3, 7-5. EFE