John Isner reaches to return a shot to Ernests Gulbis, of Latvia, during their quarterfinal match at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament, Friday, March 14, 2014, in Indian Wells, Calif. AP
INDIAN WELLS, California — For the first time in four years, Novak Djokovic is without a big title to start the year. Or any title.
The Serb is used to arriving at the BNP Paribas Open with the Australian Open in his back pocket, having won the season’s first Grand Slam three straight years. He lost in the quarterfinals in Melbourne in January, and then lost in the semifinals at Dubai last month.
“That is a different feel from previous years,” he said.
So Djokovic is especially eager to hoist the trophy at Indian Wells, where he’s a two-time champion. He took a step toward that goal with a 6-1, 6-3 quarterfinal victory against Julien Benneteau in just over an hour on Friday.
“I’m on the right path and playing semifinals, which is always of course a challenge and a good result,” he said, “but I want to try to go as far as I can.”
Djokovic never faced a break point on his serve against Benneteau, the only unseeded player left in the men’s draw. The Serb held break points on Benneteau’s serve in seven of eight games, and broke him four times during the match.
It was Djokovic’s easiest match so far. He needed three sets to get by Marin Cilic and Alejandro Gonzalez, and had to win a tiebreaker against Victor Hanescu in his opening match.
“I felt like I was very focused on the court from the start, and it’s what I was looking for. First few matches I played good tennis but I had some ups and downs,” Djokovic said. “He made a lot of unforced errors, and obviously I just needed to make him play an extra shot and serve well.”
On the women’s side, top-seeded Li Na played 20th-seeded Flavia Pennetta and No. 2 seed Agnieszka Radwanska took on sixth-seeded Simona Halep in evening semifinals.
Djokovic will next play 12th-seeded John Isner, the lone remaining American, in Saturday’s semifinals. Isner beat Djokovic in the semifinals in 2012 before losing to Roger Federer in the final.
Federer, a four-time winner here, will meet Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine in the other semifinal.
Isner fired 13 aces to beat 20th-seeded Ernests Gulbis of Latvia 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3). Isner was broken twice to fall behind 4-2 in the second set, but broke back to level the score at 5-all and then dominated the tiebreaker.
“I had all my energy going for me,” he said. “I know I have those serves in my arsenal. It’s just a matter of me pulling them out and I went for them.”
The American is projected to return to the top 10 in Monday’s ATP Tour rankings, the first time he has been there since September 2012.
“It’s hard to stay there,” he said. “I fell back, but I have been knocking on the door for quite some time. It feels good to get back in there.”
Benneteau was playing just his second career quarterfinal in a Masters 1000 event, never having reached a semifinal at this level. He committed 32 unforced errors in losing for the sixth straight time to Djokovic.
“It’s a shame at this stage of the competition to play like I did. I should’ve been better,” he said. “It’s difficult when you play Novak, who is serving very well and returning so deep.”