Two Centre Court matches that together lasted for more than seven hours served up five set matches on Wednesday, one the screaming Andy Murray making his way past Jo Wilfried Tsonga, the other Roger Federer emerging from a two set eclipse to beat Marin Clic.

Federer can sometimes seamlessly beat opponents, work on almost imperceptible fractures and weaknesses and pick them apart. He allows them put their racquet on the ball but not enough racquet, makes them play their shots from slightly the wrong position or just off balance and he makes them do it faster than they would like.

It has always been inches and microseconds with him at his best, bewitchingly sleight directional changes with all that capped emotion and sleek movement around the court.

On days when it works he is the best athlete on the planet to watch mixing vision, creativity, nerve and patience. On Wednesday those ingredients deserted him for two sets and then in his climb towards dominance in an absorbing match against Marin Cilic his mastery returned.

Federer came back from two sets down and saved three match points before a low powered precision ace iced Cilic and handed the 34-year-old with a bad back an epic 7-6 (4), 6-4, 6-3, 7-6(9), 6-3 quarterfinal win in three hours and 18 minutes.

“It was that serve and big shot, serve and big shot, or ace, service winner, ace, every single service game,” said Federer. “I was feeling like I was being rained on aces. Not very often I get that feeling. I think he had almost 15 to 20 aces in the first two sets, which is rare for me to get.

“I remember just being in trouble the whole time. At one point, you’re used to it. It’s not like, Oh, my God, all of a sudden there’s a match point, all of a sudden there’s a breakpoint to save. It just was continuous, I don’t know, for an hour or two.”

As ever with Federer it was the manner of his win and also the hinterland from which he came with his forced missing of the French Open through injury. While he was typically stylish his was a tough, street fighter’s performance against an opponent who had never lost from two sets up.

The 27-year-old Croatian won the first set on a tie-break before breaking Federer once and taking the second 6-4 to leave the 17 times major winner in serious trouble. But the Swiss third seed hung tough to take the third set 6-3.

Cilic held serve to go 5-4 up in a tense fourth set and earned match point in the 10th game, but Federer held his nerve and the set went to a tie-break.

Both men traded in a serries of critical rallies, but Federer was sound from the baseline and recovered to level the match and send it to a final set, where the epic fight back continued, breaking the fearsome Cilic delivery at 4-3 before serving out the match.

“I mean, it was an emotional win, always when you come back from two sets to love, but because of the season that I’ve had, it’s wonderful,” said Federer.

“I was just very happy that I actually felt as strong as I did, you know, mentally and physically when I was down. Whatever, those three breakpoints, after I fought them off, I did believe. Next thing you know, I was serving for the match in the fifth. Everything kind of went very quickly.

“Sometimes you feel when you’re down two sets to love, the mountain to climb is huge, it’s monstrous.”

Murray’s match severely spun away from him after a tight tiebreak gave the 29-year-old an early lead before a 6-1 second set appeared to virtually wrapped up his match with Tsonga.

But the talented and underachieving Frenchman rallied to level the scores, hitting Murray with beautifully felt on the run passing shots and a break of serve for 6-3 in the third set and 6-4 in the fourth.

It could have been one of those swinging, fretful matches that go on deep into the night but Murray called time and Tsonga buckled falling lamely in the end 6-1 in the fifth.

Murray meets Tomas Berdych. The 30-year-old from Czech Republic brought the French run of Lucas Pouille to a three set end 7-6(4), 6-3, 6-2.

Federer will play the equally big serving Milos Raonic in the semi-finals. Raonic, the sixth seed and 2014 semi-finalist, sealed a 6-4 7-5 5-7 6-4 win over Sam Querrey, the man who defeated Novak Djokovic.