Saturday 20 June 2015 16:17, UK
Andy Murray will aim to keep his bid for a record-equalling fourth Queen's Club title on track when he takes on in-form Serb Viktor Troicki for a place in Sunday's final.
The 28-year-old, who last triumphed at Queen's in 2013, had to dig deep to secure a hard-fought victory over Luxembourg's Gilles Muller in the quarter-finals.
Murray dropped the first set and was taken to a tie-break in the second before finally prevailing 3-6 7-6 (7-2) 6-4 to reach the last four at the Wimbledon warm-up event for the fourth time.
Watched by Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho for the second time this week, Friday's win was Murray's least convincing display of the tournament.
But he won't mind too much if he goes on to lift the giant silver trophy on Sunday where he could join Boris Becker, John McEnroe, Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt as the joint record winner of the tournament.
Although Murray still has plenty of room for improvement as he fine-tunes his grass-court preparations ahead of Wimbledon, the Scot can at least take heart from the gritty way he subdued the big-serving Muller to extend his record since getting married in April to 18 wins from 19 matches.
"Hopefully I can take that form into the semi-finals," said the Scot. "I'm in a good place, physically I feel good."
He also now holds a 23-5 career record at Queen's, making him the firm favourite in a tournament bereft of star names following surprise defeats for Rafael Nadal, Stan Wawrinka and Grigor Dimitrov.
Murray's opponent Troicki eased to a 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 win over John Isner of the United States.
Troicki won't fear the Scot after finishing as the runner-up on grass in Stuttgart last week and defeating US Open champion Marin Cilic in the Queen's second round this week.
Troicki has rebuilt his career after the 18-month ban that was reduced to a year on appeal, climbing back to 25 in the world rankings.
But, with the world No 3 due to face Troicki for just the second time since the ban, he was quizzed on whether he should be back in the game and if he still stood by his comments when he criticised the Serb for lacking professionalism in reaction to his ban in November 2013.
"Obviously it's a difficult situation," said two-time major winner Murray.
"I think I said at the time you have to be aware of what exactly the rules are. Like I said, it's extremely serious.
"I think if you want to protect the image of your sport, you need to understand how serious the drug testing is and anti-doping is.
Anderson faces Simon
South Africa's Kevin Anderson powered into the semi-finals with a 7-6 (9-7) 7-5 victory against Spain's Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.
Anderson was appearing in the quarter-finals for the third time in four years and the world No 17 finally made it to the last four after bludgeoning Garcia-Lopez with 18 aces.
"It was definitely dominated by serves today, so step one was take care of my own and try and create opportunities on his serve. Fortunately, I was able to get one right before the end," Anderson said.
Anderson's last four opponent is French seventh seed Gilles Simon, who fought back from a set down to defeat world number eight Milos Raonic 4-6 6-3 7-5.
World No 13 Simon had lost all three of his previous meetings with Raonic, but the 30-year-old booked his first appearance in the Queen's last four on his fifth match point.
Federer on track
In Halle, Croatian Ivo Karlovic hit a record 45 aces en route to beating third seed Tomas Berdych to set up a semi-final showdown against seven-times champion Roger Federer.
Top seed Federer stayed on track for a successful title defence with a trouble-free 6-0 7-6 (7-1) victory over German Florian Mayer with the Swiss needing just 19 minutes to race through the first set.
World No 5 Kei Nishikori was made to work much harder, needing three sets to tame Jerzy Janowicz and will next meet Andreas Seppi, who advanced when Gael Monfils retired injured.
Watch action from the ATP Gerry Weber Open live on Sky Sports 3 this weekend from 12.00.
