Watson and Loffhagen reach last eight in Nottingham

Heather Watson and George Loffhagen reached the quarter-finals of the LTA's Rothesay Open Nottingham on a busy day of British action at the Nottingham Tennis Centre. Watson faced a tough second round match against Tatjana Maria, her best friend on tour and former doubles partner who reached the semi-final at Wimbledon last year. Ad At 66th in the world, Maria is 129 spots above the Brit in the world rankings though the gap did not show as Watson produced a stylish performance to prevail 6-4 6-4 on Centre Court.

TennisLoffhagen credits aggressive tennis for keeping Nottingham run alive24 MINUTES AGO After coming through qualifying Watson is on a four-match winning streak and is yet to drop a set in Nottingham, with 2021 Wimbledon quarter-finalist Viktorija Golubic — who defeated fourth seed Donna Vekic — up next in the last eight. Watson also triumphed in the women's doubles alongside Harriet Dart, the wildcard pairing defeating third seeds Hao-Ching and Latisha Chan 6-3 6-4. Meanwhile, Loffhagen picked up the best win of his career in the opening round against Otto Virtanen, and backed that up with a hard-fought victory over Chinese qualifier Juncheng Shang.

Wildcard Loffhagen — ranked 414th in the world — battled past the world No.176 6-4 5-7 6-3 to set-up a quarter-final encounter against fifth seed Dominik Koepfer. Koepfer had in fact beaten Arthur Fery in the second round on Wednesday, the Brit's campaign ending following a 6-4 6-2 defeat to the German. Liam Broady's campaign in the men's singles also came to an end with the 29-year-old being beaten 7-6(4) 6-4 by Japan's Sho Shimabukuro.