Ireland’s Conor Niland followed up his two wins in the Australian Open qualifying with his third victory in the ATP Challenger Tour event in Kazan, Russia.
Unseeded Niland nailed down a place in the singles semi-finals when the No 7 seed, Russia’s Konstantin Kravchuk, retired injured trailing Niland 2-6 and 0-1.
The Limerick man faces an even more daunting task when he comes up Germany’s Julian Reister, the top seed, who has dropped a total of 11 games in his three contests so far in the tournament.
However, 277-ranked Niland will take some encouragement from the fact that the 23-year-old from Hamburg, who is ranked at 172, failed to get past the first round of qualifying in the Australian Open.
Meanwhile, Niland’s Davis Cup teammates Barry King and Colin O’Brien clinched a doubles semi-final place in the ITF Futures event in Nussloch, Germany.
The No 3 seeded Dublin duo scored a 6-4 1-6 10-6 (champions’ tie-break) victory over Luxembourg pair Gilles Muller and Mike Scheidweiler, who both played in the April 2000 Davis Cup loss to Ireland, at Mondorf-les-Bains.
King and O’Brien face Czech pairing Roman Jebavy and Daniel Lustig, the latter having eliminated King in the second round of the singles in the same tournament.
