Tomic upsets Nishikori, faces Raonic in Brisbane semis

BRISBANE, Australia — Bernard Tomic ended Kei Nishikori's streak of semifinal appearances at the Brisbane International with a 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 win over the second-seeded Japanese player in the quarterfinals on Friday.

Tomic's first win over a top-10 player on home soil earned him a spot in the last four against 2015 finalist Milos Raonic and a possible top 16 seeding for the Australian Open, which starts January 18 in Melbourne.

Fourth-seeded Raonic, who lost the Brisbane final last year to Roger Federer, relied on his big serve to dictate play in a 6-4, 6-4 win over No. 78-ranked Lucas Pouille.

Tomic fired nine aces in the first set and broke in the eighth game, but Nishikori, the 2014 US Open finalist, won five straight games in the second set to level the match and maintain his hopes of reaching the Brisbane semifinals for the fourth straight year.

After racing to a 4-1 lead in the third, Tomic clinched it on his first match point, avenging a loss to Nishikori here last year.

"That was very, very special to me," Tomic said. "Last year, unfortunately, I lost very comfortably to Kei, and today played very different."

Federer will play Grigor Dimitrov in the quarterfinals on Friday night. The winner of that match will play either third-seeded Marin Cilic or No. 8 Dominic Thiem.

At the Hopman Cup at Perth, Andy Murray and Heather Watson each had 6-3, 6-4 wins over German opponents — Alexander Zverev and Sabine Lisicki — to stay in contention for Saturday's final.

Murray and Watson needed to win the mixed doubles match being played later Friday and hope that the Australia Green team, which had a 2-0 record in the round-robin part of the tournament, loses to France in a night match. Australia Green can secure a spot in the final against Ukraine with a win over France.

Watson lost just four points on her serve in the first set and broke Lisicki three times.

"Today was, I am not going to say some of the best tennis I have played because the rallies were really short, but I feel like I have definitely got better," Watson said. "When I was warming up before the match I knew I was feeling great in all aspects of my game."

At Auckland, New Zealand, Julia Goerges reached her sixth WTA Tour final and her first in four years when she beat qualifier Tamira Paszek 6-4, 6-2 in an ASB Classic semifinal between two players on the comeback trail.

Goerges, ranked 50th, last reached a final at Dubai in 2012 when her ranking peaked at No. 15.

Paszek was playing her seventh match at the tournament after winning her way through qualifying into the main draw. She beat former French Open champion Francesca Schiavone in the first round and also seems to be approaching her best form as she prepares to play the qualifying tournament for the Australian Open.