TENNIS:The Croatian Ivo Karlovic was the only player to reach the semi-finals of the Nottingham Open with a 7-6 7-5 victory over Argentine teenager Juan Martin Del Potro after rain disrupted play yesterday.

The other matches will be completed today, leaving the players including defending champion Richard Gasquet with the prospect of having to play twice.

Neither Karlovic nor Del Potro looked like breaking in the first set and both squandered several set points in the ensuing tiebreak.

Karlovic, who won his first title in Houston in April, took the tiebreak 12-10 having received a let on 11-10 when the umpire over-ruled a line judge who had called his shot out.

In the second set, Karlovic managed the only break of the match, shortly after play resumed from a rain delay, for a 6-5 lead.

The 28-year-old then secured his place in the last four for the first time at Nottingham on his first match point, hammering an ace, his 24th of the match.

The 2.08 metres Karlovic will next face the winner of the match between Spain's Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Russian second seed Dmitry Tursunov.

Their quarter-final was finely balanced at one set each with Garcia-Lopez 2-1 up in the third when play was called off for the day. Tursunov had to slog it out against fellow baseliner Garcia-Lopez and on occasion the California-based Russian vented his frustration in public.

Garcia-Lopez, ranked 43 places below world number 24 Tursunov, broke to go 3-2 ahead and went on to take the first set 6-4.

The first rain break of around an hour did little to help Tursunov and he was warned by the umpire after hitting the ball in disgust at 40-0 down in the third game of the second set.

However, that seemed to spur the 25-year-old on and he saved three break points, the first with an ace.

Tursunov held his service game with a forehand that wrong-footed his opponent and then broke Garcia-Lopez for a 3-1 lead.

Tursunov failed to convert three set points in the eighth game but came back from 15-40 down in the next to take the set 6-3 despite another rain delay of 90 minutes when the score was at deuce.

The pair were back on court for only 10 minutes before another shower sent them running for cover and signalled the end of the day's play.

Sweden's Jonas Bjorkman was 1-0 ahead in the first set of his tie against France's Paul-Henri Mathieu while the two other Frenchman left in the tournament, Gasquet and Arnaud Clement, had not started their match.

WIMBLEDON:Nicolas Mahut won a place in the first round of Wimbledon thanks to a powerful and controlled display against Germany's Simon Stadler.

France's world number 106, seeded second at the qualifying event on the grass of the Bank of England Sports Ground at Roehampton, swept through the three matches of the gruelling make-or-break competition - culminating in yesterday's 6-3 7-6 (7/4) 6-1 success.

Mahut surprised himself by reaching the final of last week's Artois Championships, and arrived at Roehampton as the rising star of French tennis.