Katie Boulter beat Emma Raducanu in their all-British Nottingham Open semi-final on Sunday afternoon, 6-7(13) 6-3 6-4.
The first set was a tight one, played out on Saturday afternoon before a rain delay caused the remainder to be delayed until Sunday.
Raducanu had slipped and fallen on Saturday, appearing to hurt her knee on the wet surface before the action was halted.
Despite that setback, she eventually took the set on a tie-break, 15-13, after 80 minutes on the court. Boulter failed to convert three set points before Raducanu finally finished the job.
On Sunday afternoon, with the weather continuing to squall, the pair belatedly returned to the court to resume their intriguing battle.
The players swapped service games until Boulter picked up a crucial break in the seventh game. Raducanu defended three break points but couldn’t pull off the same trick a fourth time and surrendered the advantage.
Boulter made no mistake in the following game, following up on her break with a faultless service game. With Raducanu serving to stay alive in the set, she was forced to defend another break point but still couldn’t stop Boulter converting at the second time of asking.
After 123 minutes on the court, and nearly 24 hours since the match had begun, Boulter and Raducanu headed into a decisive third set. It was no less tightly contested. Boulter threatened an early break but Raducanu defended two break points to hold serve.
Boulter continued to press in the sixth game, forcing a desperate Raducanu to defend three break points. The world No. 209 did so twice, but failed on the third as she once again surrendered a vital lead. At 4-2 up, Boulter could sense victory.
From nowhere, Raducanu found another gear and broke back in the next game to love. The 2021 US Open champion failed to build on her break, though, dropping the following game to go 5-3 down in the final set.
But Raducanu wasn’t going away and she summoned another break right when she needed it. With Raducanu serving to level the match, Boulter once again showed her quality as an excellent forehand finished the match in her favour.
Karolina Pliskova awaits the Brit in the final, with the No. 6 seed having dropped only one set en route and vanquishing Ons Jabeur in an epic quarter-final.
Raducanu had cruised to the semi-final with straight-sets victories in the early rounds over Japan’s Ena Shibahara and Ukraine’s Daria Snigur before a walkover win against fellow Brit Francesca Jones in the quarters.
No. 3 seed Boulter was briefly troubled by Harriet Dart in the first round but saw off Canadian qualifier Rebecca Marino and Polish No. 5 seed Magdalena Frech in the quarter-final.