Federer battles hard for semi-final spot in Halle
HALLE,GERMANY: World No 1 Roger Federer was tested once again in Halle but did enough to overpower Australian Matthew Ebden 7-6(2), 7-5 in the quarter-finals on Friday. Nine-time Halle champion Federer, who saved two match points to beat Benoit Paire in the second round, edged a tense opening set against 60th ranked Ebden in the tiebreak with a backhand winner.
Ebden was leading 5-3 in the second set against the 36-year-old before the Swiss fought back to secure four consecutive games to set-up a semi-final against American Denis Kudla.
Federer extended his grasscourt streak to 19, which includes the Stuttgart title and last year’s triumphs at Wimbledon and Halle.
Qualifer Kudla, ranked 109th in the world, eased past Japan’s Yuichi Sugita 6-2, 7-5 earlier in the day. Kudla progressed to only his second semi-final at ATP tourlevel .
CILIC ADVANCES
LONDON: Croatian top seed Marin Cilic marched past Sam Querrey into the semi-finals of the ATP 500 Fever-tree championships at Queen’s Club on Friday, winning 7-6(3), 6-2 in little more than an hour.
The battle of the big-servers went to an inevitable tiebreak in a first set in which break point chances were few and far between, although Cilic did fail to convert a set point when American Querrey served at 4-5.
NOVAK PLAYS IT DOWN
LONDON: Novak Djokovic may have won Wimbledon three times, but the former world No 1 insists he isn’t one of the favourites to land the All England Club crown t his year. Djokovic stepped up his Wimbledon preparations by sweeping into the Queen’s Club quarter-finals with a 6-4, 6-1 demolition of Grigor Dimitrov on Thursday.
“Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves too early. I’m definitely not one of the favourites for Wimbledon,” he said. “Roger is the clear favourite. (Rafael) Nadal maybe hasn’t played well at Wimbledon by his standards, but he’s won it several times.”
WILDCARD FOR MURRAY
LONDON: Andy Murray will play at next week’s Eastbourne grasscourt championships in a bid to prove his fitness for Wimbledon.
Twice Wimbledon champion Murray joins Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland in accepting a wildcard at the event,