Three Brits in quarters

British tennis was celebrating at the Nottingham Open grass-court event last night as three home players reached the quarter-finals of a Tour event for the first time since 1978.

John Feaver, Richard Lewis, Mark Cox and Andrew Jarrett were the men involved 18 years ago at a tournament in Bournemouth. This time around it was Greg Rusedski, Mark Petchey and Tim Henman. First through was Rusedski, the British No 2, who beat Martin Damm of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-6.

Petchey, from Essex who won the Beckenham event two weeks ago, made it two out of two with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Patrick Rafter of Australia, and the national champion, Henman, completed the hat-trick when he knocked out the American Michael Joyce 6-7, 7-5, 6-2.

Henman had to pull back from a set down against Joyce, who reached the fourth round at Wimbledon last year, but he eventually won through safely to a quarter-final with the Dutch fifth seed, Jan Siemerink.