Serbia’s Djokovic has received 24 Grand Slam titles – a males’s file – and claimed a long-awaited Olympic gold earlier this 12 months.
The 37-year-old will face American world quantity seven Taylor Fritz in Saturday’s semi-final as he bids for a landmark one hundredth title.
Fritz, 26, comfortably beat Belgium’s David Goffin 6-3 6-4 on Friday to e-book his place within the final 4. It prolonged a run that has seen Fritz progress previous the third spherical for the primary time in Shanghai.
Djokovic, who will now compete in a 78th Masters 1,000 semi-final, mentioned he was motivated by matches towards the upcoming era.
“It retains me going, and pushes me to essentially dig deep, and to point out to the world that I’ve nonetheless acquired it in my legs, that I can nonetheless go the space with the younger guys,” he mentioned.
“I am tremendous glad that I managed to win this very difficult match.”
Mensik, 19, held his nerve within the opening set towards Djokovic.
But Djokovic, a file four-time winner of the event, was in a position to regroup after a scrappy efficiency within the tie-break and breezed by means of the second set, earlier than placing the match to mattress after two hours and 21 minutes.
Though US Open runner-up Fritz may present a troublesome take a look at for Djokovic, the adorned veteran holds a 9-0 profession file from their previous conferences.