Gael Monfils through to the last eight in Halle

The third-seeded Frenchman broke Dodig three times in the first set and twice in the second and said afterwards: "I feel good. I'm serving good and moving good.

"I'm doing good adjusting my movements to grass. I am quite happy with my game.

"I can hit better and hit stronger. I'm thinking too much, it's not natural. And I can work a bit more on my serve. (My grass game) is good, but I still have a lot of stuff to improve to be very, very good."

Sixth-seeded German Florian Mayer set up a quarter-final date with Monfils thanks to just one break in a 7-6 (7-4), 3-6, 6-4 victory over Yen-hsun Lu of Taiwan.

After both players held serve through to the first set tiebreaker, Mayer took two straight service points off Lu to claim the first set. Lu grabbed his only break in the match in the eighth game of the second set and served out before the first nine games of the third set went with serve.

Mayer picked up three matchpoints at 5-4 and Lu double-faulted on the first.

"In the last game I finally I believed in myself to go after it aggressively and got the break," Mayer said. "I was disappointed with my return today. I couldn't read his serve."

Mayer expects a difficult match against Monfils today. "I have been surprised how strong he has played here," Mayer said. "I didn't think he would be this strong on grass. "

Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine was the first seeded player to lose, beaten 6-3, 7-6 (5) by Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany, who will now face defending champion Lleyton Hewitt, who beat Andreas Seppi.