Smethurst to contest Tipton semis

Dan Smethurst has reached the semi-finals of the $15k AEGON Pro-Series Men's draw in Tipton.

The No.7 seed defeated the No.2 seed Dan Evans 6-1 6-4 to take up his place in the last four where he will now face Ludovic Walter of France.

After an opening round defeat of the French qualifier Olivier Charroin 1-6 7-5 6-4, Smethurst then faced British opponents in consecutive matches.

The British No.7 backed up a 7-5 3-6 6-1 win against Neil Pauffley, with victory over Evans following their two previous meetings at two Futures events; in Bournemouth in 2007 and Sheffield in 2009, where Evans won on both occasions.

However on this occasion Smethurst prevailed but not before negotiating a fightback from the Birmingham born Brit, who came from a set and 1-5 down to within touching distance at 4-5 before Smethurst held his serve to close out the match.

Smethurst now takes on Walter, the World No.480, who has already reached a Futures semi-final in 2010; losing to Gilles Muller (LUX) at the $10k event in Germany in January.

The other semi-final sees the No.1 seed Roberto Bautista-Agut (ESP) play the No.5 seed Kamil Capkovic (SVK) after the Spaniard narrowly defeated Burnham Arlidge 4-6 7-5 6-1. In a match that lasted just over two hours Arlidge looked set to topple the No.1 seed as he served for the match at 5-4 in the second set.

However the Spaniard recovered his form to win three consecutive games in the second set before dominating the deciding third set to reach the semi-finals.

Capkovic now awaits Bautista-Agut in the first match on court on Friday at 11am after the Slovakian knocked out his doubles partner and the No.4 seed Andrej Martin 7-5 4-6 6-3.

There was better news for Martin in the doubles though, teaming up with Capkovic to reach the final after a 1-6 6-4 [10-7] win over the British pairing Alexander Slabinsky and Josh Goodall.

The No.3 seeds will play Charroin and Walter in the final on Friday (not before 2pm) after the French pair won 6-2 6-3 against Marcus Willis and Maniel Bains.