World No.1 Novak Djokovic has booked his place in the Italian Open final but once again he lost his cool on the court in a hard-fought win over Carsten Rudd.
Exactly two weeks after he was defaulted from the US Open, and a day after he was warned by the chair umpire for breaking his racket, Djokovic received an obscenity warning midway through a 7-5 6-3 victory over the Norwegian.
As opposed to his previous two outbursts, this time there were fans in the stands who could clearly hear how Djokovic dealt with his frustration.
What's more is that, with 1,000 spectators allowed in to the Foro Italico for the first time this week, a large proportion of those in attendance were children.
"I don't want to do it, but when it comes, it happens," Djokovic said.
"That's how I, I guess, release sometimes my anger. And it's definitely not the best message out there, especially for the young tennis players looking at me. I don't encourage that - definitely."
Djokovic's behaviour once again overshadowed his performance, in a match where he had to save two set points when Ruud served for the first set at 5-4 - one of them with a delicate backhand drop-shot winner.
The top-ranked Djokovic also served five aces in a single game to take a 6-5 lead in the first.
Ruud, 21, the first Norwegian player to contest a Masters 1000 semi-final and a product of Rafael Nadal's academy, put up plenty of resistance and also produced the shot of the day: a leaping over-the-shoulder hook shot for a winner as he raced back to chase down a lob - earning a thumbs-up from Djokovic.
The obscenity warning came in the third game of the second set, by which time he had a running dialogue with the chair umpire over a series of contested calls.
Still, Djokovic improved to 30-1 this year. His only loss came when he was thrown out of the US Open for unintentionally hitting a line judge in the throat with a ball during his fourth-round match against Pablo Carreno Busta.
In Djokovic's 10th Rome final- he"ll face either eighth-seeded Argentine Diego Schwartzman who edged Canadian 12th seed Denis Shapovalov 6-4 5-7 7-6 (7-4) in a match that lasted 3 hours, 15 minutes.
Schwartzman, who will play his first Masters 1000 final, beat nine-time Rome champion Nadal late Friday in the quarter-finals.
If Schwartzman also beats Djokovic - he's lost in all four of their previous meetings - he'll enter the top 10 of the rankings for the first time.
"That was in my mind all the match," Schwartzman said. "I was fighting.
Australian Associated Press
