Top seed Kevin Anderson and fellow big-hitter Steve Johnson have been made to wait to decide who clinches the last remaining semi-final place at the Aegon Open Nottingham, after bad light forced the suspension of play on Thursday night with the players on serve at 6-7(6) 7-5 4-3.
Their match will resume at 12 noon on Friday, with the winner going on to face No. 7 seed Andreas Seppi later in the day to decide who plays in Saturday’s final at the Nottingham Tennis Centre.
Already through to the last four in the other half of the draw are eighth seed Gilles Muller and World No. 25 Pablo Cuevas, who has reached his first ATP World Tour semi-final on grass after beating Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis 6-4 4-6 7-6(8). The second seed Uruguayan saved one match point and came back from 4-0 down in the final set tie-break to prevail over last year’s Aegon Open semi-finalist after almost two and a half hours.
“I’m so happy to win today,” the 30-year-old said. “It was an amazing match. I’ve seen Marcos play a lot on this surface and he’s a big player. I’m happy to reach my first grass court semi-final at this level.”
Earlier in the day, World No. 41 Muller defeated fourth seed Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-3 6-4 to continue his fine form on grass, having reached the last eight at the Aegon Championships at the Queen’s Club last week and the final of ‘s-Hertogenbosch the week before.
Luxembourg’s Muller, 33, said: “Today was my best performance of the tournament. If you take aside the start of the second set when I got broken after playing a pretty bad game, the rest of the match was very solid. I didn’t give him many chances to break and I had plenty of chances to break, so overall, it was a good performance.
On his opponent in the last four, Muller added: “Pablo doesn’t like the grass too much but still he is a great player. He’s doing very well, he came back from a big injury two or three years ago, and has been in the top 50 since. It’s going to be a very tough match.”
Meanwhile, Seppi will be waiting to find out the identity of his semi-final opponent after the Italian beat Dudi Sela of Israel 5-7 6-4 6-4 after two hours and two minutes.
On his victory, which seals his place in an ATP World Tour semi-final for the first time in 2016, Seppi said: “It wasn’t easy, especially at the beginning. It was difficult to find the rhythm and there were a lot of mistakes. I think I improved as the match went on and we had some good rallies in the last couple of games. It’s good to win many of them, especially in the end.”
Elsewhere, 2015 Davis Cup squad member Dom Inglot is the last remaining Brit at the Aegon Open as he reached Saturday’s doubles final alongside Canadian Daniel Nestor, getting past Robert Lindstedt and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi 7-6(4) 6-4.
AEGON OPEN NOTTINGHAM – NOTTINGHAM, GBR
€704,805
19-25 JUNE 2016
RESULTS – JUNE 23, 2016
Men’s
Singles – Quarterfinals
[2] P. Cuevas (URU) d [9] M. Baghdatis (CYP) 64 46 76(8)
[8] G. Muller (LUX) d [4] A. Dolgopolov (UKR) 63 64
[7] A. Seppi (ITA) d D. Sela (ISR) 57 64 64
Men’s
Doubles – Semifinals
[2] D. Inglot (GBR) / D. Nestor (CAN) d S. Gonzalez (MEX) / S. Lipsky (USA) 76(4) 64
Quarterfinals
[1] I. Dodig (CRO) / M. Melo (BRA) d R. Lindstedt (SWE) / A. Qureshi (PAK) 63 67(4) 10-5
ORDER OF PLAY – FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2016
CENTRE COURT start 12:00 noon
[1] K. Anderson (RSA) vs [6] S. Johnson (USA) 67(6) 75 43
[8] G. Muller (LUX) vs [2] P. Cuevas (URU)
Not Before 2:00 pm
[1] K. Anderson (RSA) or [6] S. Johnson (USA) vs [7] A. Seppi (ITA)
[1] I. Dodig (CRO) / M. Melo (BRA) vs O. Marach (AUT) / F. Martin (FRA)
The Aegon Open Nottingham
Tickets to the Aegon Open Nottingham semi-finals are available for as little as £28. Please visit the LTA website for more information.
Catch all the Aegon Open Nottingham action and reaction by following the live tournament blog
For information on the hospitality packages on offer at The Aegon Open Nottingham head to the LTA website or contact Elliot Sheasby on aegonopen@lta.org.uk
The Aegon Open Nottingham sees two tournaments take place in June, with the men’s ATP event staged from 18-25 June 2016. Both the WTA and ATP tournaments are an integral part of the British grass-court season, which features 11 international grass-court tournaments in eight venues across the country.
2017 Grass Court Tournament Calendar
Earlier this year the LTA announced exciting changes to the three week 2017 grass court tournament calendar. Nottingham will host a combined men’s and women’s tour-level tournament in the same week for the first time in 44 years. The pre-existing ATP 250 tournament will move back to Eastbourne, merging with the WTA Premier Aegon International to form a combined event (as it was from 2009-2014) featuring the following format: a 28-player main draw men’s event and 48-player main draw for the women staged across nine days. Other changes include a doubling of prize money at the Aegon Trophy Series (ATP Challenger & ITF Women’s Pro Circuit) creating the highest value circuit at this level in world tennis.