ILKLEY Lawn Tennis & Squash Club’s marathon man Kyle Brassington has ‘hit the wall’.

The 32-year-old qualifier, playing his sixth match in five days, was beaten 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7-2) in almost three hours today by James Davis in his British Tour men’s singles quarter-final.

Brassington, who is also the tournament director, said after a tense, full-blooded encounter on Centre Court: “I have had about four boxes of Ibuprofen to get me through the week.”

As for his two-hour 50-minute clash against 20-year-old Kent county player Davis, who practised with Simona Halep, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and the Bryan brothers at Wimbledon, Brassington, who rarely plays singles these days, said: “I didn’t play well enough in the second and third sets to really have any opportunities.

“I was serving well and returning well until the middle of the second set and then my level dropped and I completely lost my forehand, which was frustrating, and he returned a lot better.

“On another day I might have won as my level has been getting better and better with every match and I will be playing in the Yorkshire Championships at the end of the month.”

How much that contest took out of University of Denver student Davis is debatable as he lost his semi-final later in the afternoon 6-4, 6-1 to Carlisle’s Chris Edge.

The Middle Tennessee State student will play fellow 20-year-old Hamish Stewart from Glasgow in this afternoon’s final in a battle of the qualifiers.

They have been room-mates this week at an Airbnb in Ilkley, and Edge said: “We have both been at the tournament for longer than we thought.”

Tomorrow morning’s women’s singles final will be between 16-year-old Grace Piper from Somerset and either top seed Amelia Rajecki.

Second seed Piper, who has reached her first British Tour final, defeated eighth seed Amy Hoburn from Newcastle 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-5) in the semi-finals.

Hoburn was leading 2-0 when the match was switched indoors from the grass because of rain and she had points for 5-1 before recovering from 4-1 down in the second set to force another tie-break.