Roger Federer was at his imperious best as he powered past Robin Soderling to reach the semi-finals of the Shanghai Masters.

The third-seeded Swiss has enjoyed the upper-hand over the powerful Swede down the years, winning 13 of their 14 encounters coming into this match, but never before has the outcome been so one-sided.

Federer's 6-1 6-1 triumph tees up a semi-final clash with Novak Djokovic, who defeated the Swiss in an epic US Open semi-final encounter last month.

Soderling's sole career win against Federer came in the quarter-finals of this year's French Open, since when he has slipped back into bad ways against the former world number one with back-to-back defeats.

Today's loss was all about the ineffectiveness of the Soderling serve, with the fifth seed managing just a 53% success rate on first serves, and winning just 38% of points when he did get the ball in.

Three breaks of service in the first set appeared to take the fight out of Soderling, and although he battled back from 0-5 and 15-30 down in the next to avoid a whitewash, Federer effortlessly served out the match in the next.

"I don't think Robin had his best day," Federer told Sky Sports. "You'd think a top-five player doesn't have days like these, but they do happen.

"In best-of-three-set matches, things can get ugly rather quickly.

"I didn't expect a result like this, but I'll take it any day."

Asked whether he felt more motivated to take on Djokovic in the wake of his defeat at Flushing Meadows, he added: "I'm not much of a revenge guy, but I like playing against the top guys.

"[But] after the US Open, the fans are looking for a rematch."

Djokovic booked his place in the next round after a straight-sets win over Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.

The second-seeded Serbian forced three breaks of his opponents' serve in the opening set before one break did for the Spaniard in the next as Djokovic eased to a 6-2 6-3 win.

"I felt great on the court today," said Djokovic. "Garcia Lopez has been playing some good tennis in the last couple of weeks.

"I was aware of his speed on the court. He hits the ball really well from the baseline. He made me work for the points. Even though it looked comfortable, I had to really be aware of the speed of the ball that was coming from the other side of the net."

Earlier, Andy Murray crushed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to advance impressively into the semi-finals.

The British number one was at his imperious best against an opponent in the early stages of a comeback from a knee injury.

Tsonga, in just his fifth match following a three-month lay-off, was lacking his usual verve but that should not detract from Murray's performance as he eased to a 6-2 6-2 victory in just 55 minutes.

Afterwards, Murray admitted he was delighted with his display.

He told Sky Sports 1: "It was good, I served really well.

"Jo was struggling a bit on his serve so I was able to get into a lot of the return games and I served really well all week so it was a good performance.

"I hit the ball really clean from the back of the court and the surface here is really good for me.''

Murray meets Juan Monaco in the final four after the unseeded Argentinian rallied from a set down to see off 13th-seeded Jurgen Melzer, who made headlines yesterday by ousting top seed Rafael Nadal.

Melzer looked poised to continue his good form as he took the opening set on a tie-breaker, but Monaco found another gear in the second and went on to post a 6-7 (6/8) 7-5 6-2 victory.