Evans will resume Nottingham title bid on Sunday after rain delays

Dan Evans will resume his bid to reach the final of the Nature Valley Open on Sunday after more rain delays in Nottingham.

The British number three, who won the Challenger title in Surbiton last week, had earlier battled past German Dominik Koepfer in their quarter-final clash.

However, more rain delays forced the eventual postponement of his scheduled semi-final against Japan’s Go Soeda, which will now take place on Sunday following the conclusion of matches in the WTA event, also hit by bad weather.

Evans, runner-up to Alex de Minaur in last year’s second-tier Nottingham event, eventually progressed 7-6 (6) 6-7 (6) 6-4 against Koepfer in a contest which ran for more than two and a half hours.

Because of rain delays earlier in the week, some of the matches had to be switched to be played indoors at Nottingham Trent University.

However, with conditions having improved during Saturday, the semi-finals were also expected to be able to take place on grass later during the evening before showers returned.

Evans, 29, is slowly moving up the world rankings following his 12-month ban for taking cocaine and is currently on a winning run of eight straight matches.

In the other semi-final, Russia’s Evgeny Donskoy will play Frenchman Antoine Hoang.

In the women’s WTA tournament, top seed Caroline Garcia was on the brink of victory against Jennifer Brady when their semi-final was eventually postponed because of more bad weather.

American Brady, who upset fourth seed Maria Sakkari in the quarter-finals, had taken the first set 6-4 before another suspension in play.

Having finally been able to get out onto the grass to resume action shortly after 6.30pm, Frenchwoman Garcia was able to recover and swiftly levelled the match when taking the next set 6-3.

However, with Garcia 4-3 ahead in the decider and a break up, play was again interrupted before the decision was made to call it a day just after 8pm.

Earlier, second seed Donna Vekic had been able to beat the showers and defeat Tatjana Maria 5-7 6-0 6-0.

With five consecutive days of rain having seen numerous washouts and delays, some of the tournament’s matches had been moved to nearby indoor hard courts.

Sascha Bajin, the coach of French player Kristina Mladenovic, had criticised tournament officials over how the situation was handled, writing on Twitter that “many bad decisions have been made here in Nottingham”.

On Saturday, Lawn Tennis Association’s director of international events Stephen Farrow wrote a reply to the German’s post, saying the circumstances had been “unprecedented for any tennis event in the UK” before adding “easy to criticise but in the circumstances they’ve done an outstanding job.”

German Bajin then became involved in a lengthy exchange on the social media platform, during which he looked to clarify his comments “towards those who don’t have the players safety as a priority” and the issue was over “getting players out there on the wet grass and when it started raining again forcing them to continue”.

Farrow suggested Bajin, who has also worked with Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams, should “give it (volunteering) a go before you criticise”, with the German coach later again stressing his initial post had been misunderstood.