Last updated on .From the section Tennis

Former world number one Rafael Nadal has slipped to eighth in the rankings this year

Rafael Nadal will face Novak Djokovic in the China Open final after the Serb beat Spain's David Ferrer 6-2 6-3.

Nadal, 29, earlier reached his sixth singles final of 2015 with a 7-5 6-3 win over Italy's Fabio Fognini.

Fognini had beaten Nadal three times this year, including the US Open third round, but the Spaniard crucially broke his serve at 5-6 in the opening set.

"Happy to be back in a final. Thanks all for your support. Vamos," the 14-time Grand Slam winner tweeted. external-link

The semi-final featured six breaks of serve, five in the first set alone. In the second set, Nadal broke 28-year-old Fognini again to go 4-2 ahead and held out for victory.

In Sunday's final, Nadal, whose world ranking has dropped to eighth, will be seeking a fourth trophy in a season in which he has failed to win a Grand Slam title for the first time since 2004.

World number one Djokovic, 28, reached his sixth final in Beijing with a 73-minute straight-sets win over 33-year-old fourth seed Ferrer.

In the women's semi-finals, Serbian sixth seed Ana Ivanovic, 27, lost a one-set lead over Switzerland's Timea Bacsinszky, 26, and crashed out 5-7 6-4 6-1 in the last four.

Bacsinszky will meet this year's Wimbledon runner-up Garbine Muguruza, 22, after the Spaniard posted a hard-fought 4-6 6-3 6-4 victory over 26-year-old Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland.