Murray battered by ruthless Djokovic in Indian Wells

Djokovic has now won nine of their past 10 meetings - the exception being the 2013 Wimbledon final - and though Murray served poorly and was not at his best, especially in the first set, it would have taken something extraordinary to deny the Serb.

Going into last night's semi-final Murray will doubtless take plenty of positives from a week in which he played well and he will remind his critics that it is less than two months since he was in a winning position against Djokovic in the final of the Australian Open.

But no one likes being dismantled and Djokovic was superior in every department of the game, particularly on serve, never allowing Murray to attack and ripping into the Scot's first serve almost as much as his second.

When Murray lost in Melbourne, he was angry at himself at allowing himself to be distracted by Djokovic's "rope-a-dope" appearance in the third set, at one stage looking out on his feet before hitting back with a knock-out punch.

Last night, Djokovic was up throughout, never suffering a dip, and was so much in the zone that when asked to sum up his performance, he just stuck to the script.

"I was hoping I would be this comfortable on the court, start with the right intensity," he said.

"I was a bit concerned about how I would adjust to the conditions - I played my other three matches at night - but I made a crucial break at the start, Andy wasn't at his maximum, he made a lot of unforced errors and his first serve percentage was low and that allowed me to be aggressive."

Much has been made of the Murray second serve but it was his first serve that was found wanting, landing only 47% of them and winning only half, a statistic that improved as the match wore on.

Djokovic seemed to be reading the Murray serve and with so much pressure to react, the Scot struggled, especially on the forehand side.

An early break put Djokovic 3-0 up and though he was broken at 5-1, he broke Murray to love to take an opening set that was as clean as he could have hoped.

The second set followed a similar pattern as Djokovic ripped into the Murray first serve and dominated the bulk of the points, soon opening up another 3-0 lead.

Sensing he had to attack to even stand a chance, Murray worked his way into the match and by the end of it, was playing far better but it was too little too late to deny Djokovic who is showing everyone why he is so far clear at the top of the rankings.

The Serb was generous about the Murray serve, pointing out that "when he won Wimbledon and the US Open he was serving really well. [But] I'm sure he knows I'm returning well and I know he's returning well, so that puts an additional pressure on our serves. I tried to add variety on second serve, not give him any rhythm. It worked well."

Murray will remain No 4 in the rankings as he now heads to his second home of Miami for another Masters 1000 event, a tournament where he has twice won the title.

Victory over Djokovic would have lifted him above Rafa Nadal to No 3 after the Spaniard was beaten in the quarter-finals in Indian Wells by Milos Raonic, missing three match points in the second-set tie-break as he lost 4-6, 7-6, 7-5.

Seeing Nadal miss match point chances is not an everyday occurrence but Nadal, who said he was delighted with his form for two sets, described his year as "a process".

"I am not happy that I lost," Nadal, said, with a smile. "[But] feeling that I was there fighting for the victory against a top player again in a good surface for him is a big improvement for me.

"I am happy because I am much closer than one-month-and-a-half ago to where I want to be. I had a lot of chances to win. Maybe I should have."

Ranoic came unstuck against Federer last night, going down 7-5, 6-4, so there will be a repeat of last year's epic final, which was won by Djokovic.

The women's final will be between third seed Simon Halep of Romania and former champion Jelena Jankovic, the Serb who won the title in 2010.