Kyle Edmund progressed to the semi-finals of the Nature Valley International after battling back to win his all-British clash with Dan Evans.
The 24-year-old underlined his status as the country’s number one player by recovering from a nightmare opening set to defeat a valiant Evans 1-6 6-3 6-4.
Edmund will face unseeded American Taylor Fritz for a place in Saturday’s final.
An upset looked on the cards after the 29-year-old began confidently and breezed through the opening set.
He first broke South Africa-born Edmund in a bizarre opening game which was twice briefly disrupted, firstly by a spectator chocking and then by a seagull landing on the court.
Edmund, who retired from the French Open last month with a knee injury, had won the only previous ATP Tour match between the players, at the 2017 Monte Carlo Masters.
The world number 31 secured an important break in the third game of the second set, with mistakes beginning to creep into Evans’ play.
With a vocal crowd getting behind both men, the decider remained on serve until the 10th game when Edmund eventually made the most of his fourth match point to ensure himself at least one more warm-up match before Wimbledon.
