Roger Federer fulfilled expectations with a solid 7-6 (10-8) 7-5 defeat of Philipp Kohlschreiber to move to within one win of a return to the top ATP ranking with his second-round victory at the Rotterdam World Tennis Tournament.
The 36-year-old Swiss needs to win a Friday match against one of two Dutchman – Robin Hasse or Tallon Greikspoor – to take back the top ranking from Rafael Nadal on Monday.
Should he do it, the 20-time grand slam champion would become the oldest man to ever hold the position, beating Andre Agassi by three years.
Federer won against Gemany’s Kohlschreiber in less than two hours.
The 54-minute first set lasted well past Federer’s crushing win of the day before in the first round, which took 47 minutes over Ruben Bemelmans.
The top seed recovered from a 2-5 deficit in the opening set tiebreaker and seized the early lead on his third chance with a passing winner.
The second stayed tight until a Kohlschreiber double-fault handed Federer a 6-5 lead, and he served it out a game later to advance on a winning volley.
Grigor Dimitrov reached the quarter-finals for a second straight year as he overcame a challenge from Filip Krajinovic 6-4, 7-6 (7-5).
The second-seeded Bulgarian, who ended 2017 with a trophy at the ATP Finals in London, fired 13 aces and was untroubled by four break points.
Dimitrov will Friday take on Russian Andrey Rublev, who needed more than two hours to go past Bosnian Damir Dzumhur 6-4 7-6 (7-4).
Russia’s Daniil Medvedev joined his compatriot in the last eight with a defeat of Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert 3-6 7-6 (7-2) 6-4,