Fourth seed Kei Nishikori has booked his place in the semi-finals of the Barcelona Open with a straight-sets victory over Marin Cilic of Croatia.
The Japanese players started very well and claimed a break to 15 at the first time of asking, before consolidating it in the next game for a 2-0 lead.
He remained comfortable on serve and he managed to claim two more breaks, in the fifth and seventh games respectively, to take the opening set 6-1 in 30 minutes.
The second set was not quite so comfortable for Nishikori, and indeed he was broken for the first time in the match in the opener as Cilic took it with his first break point.
The Japanese battled back and then won three more games running to lead 4-1, from which point he won his service games to see out the match comfortably 6-1 6-3.
Matt Domm
