Roger Federer into his 10th Gerry Weber Open final after defeating Ivo Karlovic

Both players held serve until Federer made a mini-break to go 4-3 up in the first tiebreaker.

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Federer stormed into his 10th final of the Gerry Weber Open on Saturday (Source: AP)

Seven-time champion Roger Federer defeated big-serving Ivo Karlovic 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4) to reach the Gerry Weber Open final for the 10th time on Saturday.

Karlovic had not been broken in 48 service games all week with the eighth-seeded Croat firing 45 aces on Friday, an ATP record for a best-of-three-sets match.

Karlovic relied heavily on his serve again, hitting 20 aces, but ultimately had no answer as Federer dug deep and moved a step closer to claiming his 15th title on grass.

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Both players held serve until Federer made a mini-break to go 4-3 up in the first tiebreaker. The Swiss did it again and won the first set on Karlovic’s double-fault.

Federer saved the only break point he faced at 2-1 in the second.

Another mini-break put Federer 3-2 up in the second tiebreaker, but Karlovic answered for 3-3. Federer correctly challenged a call that would have put the 27th-ranked player ahead and secured another mini-break when Karlovic hit a return to the net. He wrapped it up in 1 hour, 28 minutes.

The second-seeded Kei Nishikori faced Italy’s Andreas Seppi in the other semifinal later. The Japanese player was hoping to reach his first ATP final on grass.