Tennis: Rafael Nadal swept towards a third consecutive Rome Masters title, beating fifth seed Novak Djokovic 6-2 6-3 in the quarter-finals.
The world number two, whose victory took his winning streak on clay to 75 matches, went through to a semi-final against fourth seed Nikolay Davydenko, who beat Tommy Robredo 1-6 6-3 6-3 in an earlier match.
In the other half of the draw, wild card Filippo Volandri swept past 12th-seeded Czech Tomas Berdych 6-2 6-3 to become the first Italian player to reach the last four since Adriano Panatta in 1978.
Volandri will next face the winner of the later quarter-final between sixth seed Fernando Gonzalez and Juan Ignacio Chela.
Djokovic had beaten Nadal on the way to winning the Miami Masters in April. That result, along with the 19-year-old Serb's victory at last week's claycourt event in Estoril, had raised expectations he might pull off an upset.
Instead, Nadal dominated the match, bludgeoning Djokovic with heavy groundstrokes.
