On a somewhat uneventful day at the Gerry Weber Open, the fans were deprived of the re-match between the Stuttgart finalists on Monday as Phillipe Kohlschreiber withdrew without taking to the court due to a hip injury, thus allowing the Stuttgart champion Dominic Thiem a walkover in the last eight and much needed rest before a potential showdown with Roger Federer in the final on Sunday.

Federer, the eight time champion looked set for a relatively simple route to the last four as he broke the diminutive David Goffin’s serve three times in the first set which he wrapped up in 21 minutes with a 6-1 score. He had two break points in the eighth game but Goffin saved both and broke the Swiss maestro’s serve in the next game.

Goffin served for the second set, but he failed to convert a set point at 40-30 and the top seed broke right back. It went into a tie-break where Federer saved three set points before finally securing a 6-1, 7-6(10) win on his fifth match point in a match lasting 81 minutes.

He next faces the German sensation Alexander Zverev as the #NextGen star saw off the veteran Marcos Baghdatis 7-6(9), 6-3. The 19 year old Zverev ranked 38th in the world, now is likely to be seeded at Wimbledon starting June 27th. Federer win their only career meeting last month at the Italian open in Rome where he won 6-3, 7-5.

Florian Mayer, the 32 year old German will play the Austrian Dominic Thiem in the other semi-final after he completed a 7-6(4), 6-3 win over last year’s runner up Andreas Seppi of Italy. Mayer is on a comeback trail and is playing on protected ranking points currently.

The following is the line up for the last four with my pick mentioned first:-

Roger Federer (1) (16-5) v. Alexander Zverev (26-14) ; Federer leads 1-0
Dominic Thiem (47-11) (3) v. Florian Mayer (6-4); First match

Queen’s Club

Over in London, four time champion Andy Murray got the better of the frequent practice partner Kyle Edmund with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-1 win in front of Roy Emerson, John McEnroe, Boris Becker and Lleyton Hewitt, all four time winners at the Aegon championships at the Queen’s club.

He next faces the 2012 champion Marin Cilic of Croatia who rallied from a set down to beat the lone American left in the draw, Steve Johnson, with a scoreline of 6-7(3), 6-3, 6-4. The third seeded Milos Raonic easily defeated the Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut 6-1, 6-4. The sixth seeded Agut had completed a 6-4, 6-2 win over the left handed American Donald Young in a match suspended by rain on Thursday.

Raonic will next play the Australian Bernard Tomic who had a hard fought 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-2 win over Giles Muller of Luxembourg. Muller was a runner up at a warm up event in Holland losing to the Frenchman Nicolas Mahut in a rain delayed final.

The following is the line up of last four in London with my pick mentioned first:-

Andy Murray (1) ((31-6) v. Marin Cilic (5) (19-12); Murray leads 10-2
Milos Raonic (3) (30-7) v. Bernard Tomic (19-14); Raonic leads 3-0.

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