It was a great week at the two most important tune ups leading to Wimbledon, Halle and Queens Club. Federer impressed at Halle, taking his 10th title in a final which saw David Goffin contest a tight first set. However, it was all Federer in the second set. The final score was 7-6, 6,1.  The Halle title didn’t come as easily for 37-year-old Roger Federer. He had two tight three set matches on the way to the final with Bautista Agut and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Luckily for Federer, he caught a few good breaks here and there, and as always pulled through with his best tennis when he needed to. Federer has now won his 10th Halle tournament, and If I was playing Wimbledon next week, I wouldn’t be looking forward to playing Roger in any rounds. He looks sharp, confident and hungry. He’s playing well on his favorite surface. He’s the clear favorite now.

On the other side of the pond, we saw Feliciano Lopez win both the singles and doubles at Queens (with Andy Murray!). Not bad for a 37-year-old not named Roger Federer.  Lopez beat some tough competition on his way to the singles title, including Milos Raonic, Auger Aliassime and Gilles Simon on the way to the final. His acceptance speech was pretty funny as well. He thanked his fiancé and told her that he was glad he won because he’d only been losing since they started dating, and this proved to her that he was actually a pretty good tennis player. There were smiles all around. He also commended and thanked the tournament director. He said he’d been taking some notes all week so he could take back to Madrid next year. As some of us may know, Lopez is also the tournament director at the Masters 1000 Madrid Open.

Finally, there was Andy Murray, coming back strong after hip surgery. All hail Murray! Tennis needs him. He felt so comfortable on the grass that rumor is he’s requesting a wild card into Wimbledon for singles. That should be something!