The ATP side of things has shaped up pretty nicely in Cincinnati for the three main men in the mix for the all-important US Open seedings next week.

At the top of the tree, Novak Djokovic found the form that had maybe been eluding him at the start of the week, as he firmly banished all memories of the French Open defeat to Stan Wawrinka with a confident win over the Swiss.

 “As I play more and spend more time on the practice court during the matches,” Djokovic noted, “I allow myself to get back into the right routine and get back in the rhythm where I want to be. I felt like today, as well, that the baseline game was much more solid, more controlled. Whenever I needed to hit the ball and take over the control of the rally, I have done so. Every aspect of my game was a much better performance than it was in first matches.”

We will not add fuel to the ever-continuing fire of the ‘sledging’ of last week, but by his own admission it has been a tough few days for Wawrinka, as he continues to make his tennis do the talking.

He may have been surprised to be facing Alexandr Dolgopolov and not Tomas Berdych, who quite honestly had passed through the terminal with hardly any fanfare (or interviews) until his straight-sets dispatch. Berdych has put a lot of faith in the coaching and meticulous game planning of Dani Vallverdu, but in doing so, we fear he has lost what intuition he had to be able to adapt when that game plan is not working.

Of course, the focus of the day is the impending rematch between Andy Murray and Roger Federer. Having regained the No. 2 spot, Murray has toiled a little in the Midwest sun, while Federer has looked suitably in control this week. And surely the manner of his win at Wimbledon over the 2013 champion there has to give him a teeny bit of confidence?

 “I've played him quite well recently,” said Federer. “It hasn’t always been like that. He had a run of matches where he was beating me maybe three, four times in a row. Wimbledon was a really good match of mine.  I served great. I'm not going to expect myself to serve this well tomorrow, but I hope I can still play somewhat close to that. There will be more baseline rallies in my opinion, even though it's going to be a day session match. That's a switch for me going from three nights to a day now. The day plays much faster than the nighttime.”

On the women’s side Serena Williams had another battle on her hands when she faced a pretty inspired Ana Ivanovic, who took the match to the world No. 1. Ivanovic edged the first set and pushed her in the second before Williams ‘did a Serena’ and pulled back the deficit in the second and third sest, as Ivanovic started to visibly tire.

It has been a tough season for the Serbian, suffering from a broken toe at the start of the year, thanks to a stubborn bathroom door, and she admitted that she had felt like she was always playing catch up.

Williams will face Elina Svitolina, a WTA rising star who made light work of Lucie Safarova in the third set, dropping a bagel on the Czech Roland Garros finalist.

The most entertaining press conference honors had to go to Jelena Jankovic, who announced on court in her post-match interview that she was ’30 and flirty,’ but once more she is at the business end of a Premier Mandatory, proving that age is just a number.

“It's not easy, long days, but that's the job I chose to do and I cannot complain,” Jankovic pointed out.  “Especially when you're doing well, you don't want to complain. It’s like you're tired, but it's that good tiredness.  It’s like you feel good because you have done a good job. It's worse when you're losing and you're aching. It was the worst feeling. So when you're winning and you're tired, you're fine. You love it. You have a good sleep. You had a great day.”

The semifinals start at 1pm on Saturday,