Day 11 Roundup: Djokovic ends Nadal's reign at Roland Garros while Murray, Serena also through

Novak Djokovic ended an era of Rafael Nadal's reign at Roland Garros, winning in three straight sets over the defending champion at the quarter-finals on Wednesday.

The world No. 1 will next face Scotsman Andy Murray, a 7-6 (4), 6-2, 5-7, 6-1 winner over Spaniard David Ferrer, en route to putting one hand on the Musketeers' Cup.

On women's part, top seed and two-time champion Serena Williams brushed aside Italy's Sara Errani, seeded 17th, 6-1, 6-3 to reach the semifinals.

The top-ranked No. 1 American, who maintained unbeaten so far in her nine meetings with Errani, will next meet Swiss Timea Bacsinszky after the latter beat Alison Van Uytvanck of Belgium 6-4, 7-5.

In the doubles' play, No. 1 seeds - Swiss great Martina Hingis and her Indian partner Sania Mirza, crashed out following a straight-set defeat by by Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova in their quarter-finals.

The hot favorites failed to live up to their reputation, beaten by the seventh seeded American-Czech pair 7-5, 6-2 after managing a total of 61 points as compared to 70 by their lower-ranked rivals.

Mattek-Sands and Safarova will face Czech duo Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka after the ninth seeds upset the fourth seeds Hsieh Su-Wei of Chinese Taipei and Italian Flavia Pennetta 7-5, 3-6, 7-5.

China's last representative Zheng Jie also ran out of her fuel at this year's Roland Garros, as the 32-year-old veteran and her partner Henri Kontinen of Finland lost 7-5, 7-6 (5) to Lucie Hradecka and Marcin Matkowski.

The other pair entering the mixed doubles final is the United States' Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Mike Bryan as the second seeds rallied past Katarina Srebotnik and Horia Tecau 4-6, 6-3, 10-8.

Spain's Nadal, who turned 29 on Wednesday, committed a double fault to surrender 7-5, 6-3, 6-1 in two hours and 26 minutes to Djokovic after the Serb had held three match points.

Entering Roland Garros ranked just the seventh, Nadal had to accept a draw pitting him and top seed Djokovic in the quarter-finals.

While injuries and appendicitis kept the "King of Clay" off court during the second half of 2014, the Spaniard arrived in Paris without winning a European claycourt event for the first time in over a decade.

It's just the second defeat of Nadal in 72 career matches at Roland Garros after ruling the French Open for nine of the last 10 years. The other came in the fourth round in 2009 against Robin Soderling.

Responding to Xinhua's question about how his career is coming to a turning point, Nadal said he is not losing confidence and will try harder to come back.

"I gonna come back next year and I gonna try to be competitive, to try to be better prepared than this year, and try to arrive with a little bit more good confidence," he said.

"Everybody lose in every place. I lost not many times here, and that day arrived today," added the claycourt specialist. "Like I always accept the defeats, there is only one sure thing -- I want to work harder even than before to come back stronger."

The 28-year-old Djokovic, on the other hand, will be chasing his first French Open title to complete a career slam after twice losing to Nadal in the finals of the 2012 and 2014 tournament.

"Everything is coming together in my life and I am experiencing probably the pinnacle of my career, of my life," said the top seed who's got married and had a baby in the last 12 months.

"I am a complete person. Very satisfied on and off the court. I think it all influences the results and my performances," he added.

Breaking Nadal as early as in the sixth seed's first two serving games, Djokovic allowed his opponent only four points and raced into a 4-0 lead before the Spaniard broke back to level it on 4-4.

Nadal overcame three set points to make it 5-5 after the 10th game, during which the Spaniard was warned by umpire Cedric Mourier for exceeding the 20-second limit between points.

The 12th game, however, saw Nadal save two more set points but broken again by the Serb with a low cross-courter that Nadal returned wide.

Djokovic continued to be overwhelmingly controlling in the following sets, breaking for 5-3 in the second and going even more ruthless in the third, while Nadal just netted more tired drives. Enditem