A round-up of Friday’s tennis action from the ATP Tour events in Halle and London.
ATP Halle
Top seed Roger Federer reached the Halle Open semi-finals, beating defending champion Florian Mayer 6-3 6-4 and edging closer to a ninth title at the Wimbledon tune-up event.
The 18-time grand slam champion, whose last title at Halle was in 2015, skipped the entire clay court season after winning the Australian Open and claiming titles at Indian Wells and Miami this year, to prepare for grass.
He will now face rapidly rising talent Karen Khachanov, who won his all-Russian quarter-final against Andrey Rublev 7-6(8) 4-6 6-3 to reach his first tour semi-final of the year.
Federer, who has yet to drop a set in Halle after crashing out of Stuttgart in his first match back last week, limited his serve-and-volley game against the German who is a fine returner and Mayer was broken quickly as his opponent won the first set.
Mayer, 33, squandered two break points at 1-0 in the second set and paid the price as Federer broke again and never relinquished his advantage to win in just over an hour.
Frenchman Richard Gasquet also reached the last four, edging past Dutchman Robin Haase 6-1 3-6 6-1 and looked to be hitting top grass court form at just the right time.
Gasquet will now play the winner of the last quarter-final between local favourite Alexander Zverev and Spaniard Roberto Bautista-Agut later on Friday.
ATP Queens
Marin Cilic set up a semi-final clash with Gilles Muller at Queen’s Club as the Croatian powered to 6-4, 7-5 victory over Donald Young.
Having lifted the Queen’s trophy in 2012, Cilic fancies his chances of adding a second title as the highest ranked player left in the draw following the exits of Andy Murray, Stan Wawrinka and Milos Raonic.
The world No 7 has yet to drop a set in three matches en route to his fourth semi-final appearance at the Wimbledon warm-up event in west London.
Cilic, who also finished as Queen’s runner-up in 2013, was pushed hard by Young, but the former US Open champion fired 11 aces to see off the American world No 55 in one hour and 26 minutes.
Luxembourg’s Muller is through to his first Queen’s semi-final after defeating 2010 champion Sam Querrey 6-4, 7-6 (7/5).
Muller, 34, has won the first two ATP Tour titles of his career this year, helping him climb to a career-high ranking of 26, and he now has a seven-match winning streak on grass.
His huge serve was on full display when he won the ‘s-Hertogenbosch title on grass last week and once again he used it to devastating effect against Querrey.
Querrey, the 2010 Queen’s champion, is no slouch on grass either, but Muller held his nerve in two tight sets to clinch his first win over the world No 28.
* Agence France-Presse
Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE
Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/TheNationalSport