World No.1 Daniil Medvedev and fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas defused Taylor Fritz and John Isner, respectively, on Friday to reach the men's singles semifinal round of the Cincinnati Open, with the other semifinal set up between Cameron Norrie and Borna Coric.

Medvedev, who defeated Fritz 7-6(1), 6-3, tightened the grip on his ranking with 18 aces and 30 winners in an hour and 40 minutes.

"The first set he was on top of me a little bit. He had many more chances than I did on my serve, but I managed to stay in. There were some set points where I could have missed and no one would have talked about it, it would have been normal. But I managed to stay in the set and that helped me win the match," Medvedev commented after the match.

Isner, the biggest server in men's tennis with nearly 200 more aces than his nearest rival Nick Kyrgios, also had 18 aces but it was not enough to put away Tsitsipas who claimed the match 7-6 (5), 5-7, 6-3.

Cameron Norrie held off third seed Carlos Alcaraz, the teenage sensation looking for his third ATP Masters 1000 title this season, to clinch a 7-6(4), 6-7(4), 6-4 win, setting up his next round with Borna Coric who saw off Felix Auger Aliassime 6-4, 6-4.

The women's semifinal matchups will feature Madison Keys against Petra Kvitova, and Aryna Sabalenka against Caroline Garcia.

Both Keys and Kvitova had easy wins in straight sets against their quarterfinal rivals, Elena Rybakina and Ajla Tomljanovic, respectively.

No. 6 seed Sabalenka moved past China's veteran Zhang Shuai 6-4, 7-6 (1) to book the semifinal match with qualifier Garcia, who continued her upset run through the draw with 6-1, 7-5 win over seventh seed, Jessica Pegula.

(With input from Xinhua, Reuters)