World number two Rafael Nadal powered to a 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 victory over James Blake on Wednesday to reach the semifinals of the Sony Ericsson Open.

Nadal defeated his American rival for the first time in his career at the Pacific Life Open quarterfinals two weeks ago and replicated the feat on Wednesday.

Blake made far too many mistakes during the one hour, 55 minute contest, producing 31 unforced errors compared with just 13 for second seed Nadal.

The American also offered Nadal 19 opportunities to break his serve, the triple French Open champion successfully doing so four times in total.

Sizzling backhand

Nadal turned the match in his favour when he broke the ninth-seeded Blake with a sizzling backhand passing shot to go 5-3 up in the second set.

The spaniard greeted the break with his trademark fist pump and from then on Blake's challenge faded.  Nadal will play 10th seed Tomas Berdych in the semifinals after the Czech's 6-4, 6-4 victory over Russia's Igor Andreev.. "
Jankovic through

Jelena Jankovic reached the semifinals after world number 11 Elena Dementieva retired with a back injury.

Jankovic was suffering badly from a cold but did not have to stay on court too long as Dementieva quit midway through the second set.

Jankovic will play world number 20 Vera Zvonareva after the Russian earned a 7-5, 6-4 win over Dinara Safina.
Defending champion Serena Williams will take on Svetlana Kuznetsova in the other semifinal.

Serbian Jankovic was leading 6-1, 3-1 when Dementieva, who had her injury treated on court earlier in the match, decided she could not carry on.

Dementieva struggled from the outset, racking up 26 unforced errors and was broken three times before retiring.  Zvonareva said she had to battle hard against the taller Safina. "It's always tough to play against Dinara, she's a great player," Zvonareva said.

"She has a good serve. So I had to hang in there, had to fight for every point, and I think I did it well and I was able to win key points."

Bhupathi  wins

Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles defeated Leander Paes and Paul Hanley in a keen contest to reach the men’s doubles semifinals, reports PTI from New Delhi.

In a gruelling quarterfinal match fourth-seeded Bhupathi and his Bahamian partner Knowles pipped the eight-seeded Indo-Australian duo of Paes and Hanley 6-2, 6-7 (8), 10-6 .

In the semifinals, the Indo-Bahamian combine will meet the sixth-seeded Czech pair of Martin Damm and Paul Vizner, who faced an equally tough task while getting past Richard Gasquet and Jo-Wilfred Tsonga of France 6-4, 2-6, 10-4.