Roger Federer, playing his second event since returning from a back injury, says he is starting to get into a rhythm.
The top seed fell to Dominic Thiem in the semifinals in Stuttgart, and is playing Halle this week.
"The bar is naturally lower," he said following his first-round win over Jan-Lennard Struff. "[J]ust because I need to first feel like I’m free with everything—my mind, my body, my game, whatever. So, there’s so many things to work through it."
But having now played five matches on grass, the seven-time Wimbledon champion—and eight-time Halle champion—is starting to aim higher.
"I’m getting there,” he said. “I’m happy that I’m getting more and more info every match I play. Now, I think it was clearly really good for me that I played Stuttgart ... Now I feel, after the first round [and] after having played last week, actually maybe something is really possible here.
"I don’t want to get too carried away, but I feel like if I serve the way I did today and I’m able to step it up just a little bit on the return from the baseline, all of a sudden I’m dangerous for anybody.”
Federer also sees himself on track for Wimbledon, having had a season interrupted by injury and illness.
"I mean, the hope before Stuttgart and Halle was that, number one, I can play both,” he said. “I was considering skipping one of them, probably Stuttgart first. That was all achieved by now, having played both tournaments. And then I said if I can play two to three matches in Stuttgart, that’s already really good. And then if I can play a couple of more here, maybe, that’s great.
"So, basically I already achieved my initial goal from two, three, four weeks ago ... I hope I’m going to be good at Wimbledon when it starts."
Federer, the top-ranked player in Halle, topped Malek Jaziri, 6-3, 7-5, in the second round.