Roger Federer is within three wins from winning an unprecedented ninth title, at the warm up event for Wimbledon, in the German town of Halle at the Gerry Weber Open. He will play the diminutive David Goffin of Belgium in the last eight.

The 34 year old Swiss superstar, seven time champion at Wimbledon who has only played five tournaments in 2016, had to come from behind in the second set against the Tunisian Malek Jaziri before winning 6-3, 7-5. Goffin advanced after Federer’s conqueror at Wimbledon 2013 Sergiy Stakhovsky retired trailing 0-2 in the third set after the pair had split the first two sets.

The German veteran Phillipe Kohlschreiber who lost the rain delayed final in Stuttgart against the Austrian Dominic Thiem had a good win against the hard serving Croat Ivo Karlovic as he rallied after dropping the first set in a tie-break before winning 6-7(7), 6-4, 7-5.

Dominic Thiem overcame a slow start to beat the Russian Teymuraz Gabashvili 6-4, 6-1. That sets up a repeat of Monday’s final in Stuttgart. Interestingly the duo had also contested the Munich final on clay which the German won also in three sets.

The following is the line up for the quarter finals at Halle, with my pick mentioned first:-

Roger Federer (1) v David Goffin (5)
Marcos Baghdatis v. Alexander Zverev
Dominic Thiem (3) v. Phillipe Kohlschreiber (8)
Andreas Seppi v. Florian Mayer

Queen’s Club

At the warm up event in Queen’s, the defending champion Andy Murray easily defeated the Slovenia born Aljaz Bedene 6-3, 6-4 and next faces Kyle Edmund who got a walkover from Frenchman Paul Henri Mathieu. The 2014 U.S. Open champion and a former winner at Queen’s,  Marin Cilic of Croatia accounted for Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia 6-4, 6-2.

The left handed Giles Muller of Luxembourg who finished runner up last week in Holland to Nicolas Mahut had a marathon second set tie-break against the seventh seeded American John Isner before winning 3-6, 7-6(16), 7-6(7). The Australian Bernard Tomic too rallied after dropping the first set to the veteran Spaniard Fernando Verdasco, the scoreline was 6-7(2), 6-4, 6-4.

The third seeded Milos Raonic of Canada, the dark horse for Wimbledon and who will have the former three time champion John McEnroe in his camp, had an excellent win against Jiri Vesley, one of the only three players to beat the world number Novak Djokovic in 2016. The scoreline was 7-5, 7-6(6).

The following is the quarter final line up at Queen’s Club with my pick mentioned first :-

Andy Murray (1) v. Kyle Edmund
Marin Cilic (5) v. Steve Johnson
Milos Raonic (3) v. Donald Young/ Roberto Bautista Agut *
Giles Muller v. Bernard Tomic

* Young v Agut(8) is suspended after Young won the first set 6-4

– Rasesh Mehta [Rasesh Mehta is an analyst with the Tennis Galaxy. You can reach him at the email: sportzcosmos@gmail.com]