Three British players—Katie Boulter, Jodie Burrage and Heather Watson—advance to Nottingham semifinals

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There's nothing better than home cooking. Katie Boulter, Jodie Burrage and Heather Watson all advanced to the semifinals of the WTA 250 Nottingham Open with quarterfinal wins Friday, marking the first time that three British players are among the last four at a tour-level tournament in nearly 40 years.

In 1975, Sue Barker, Glynis Coles and Virginia Wade featured in the semifinals of the Paris Indoors. This weekend, Watson will contest her 12th tour-level semifinal, bidding for her sixth final, while 26-year-old Boulter and 24-year-old Burrage will each play their first.

One-half of the quarterfinalists were British, too; Boulter, a wild card this week, beat Harriet Dart, a qualifier, in an all-British quarterfinal, the first on the WTA since 1992. Plagued by back and leg injuries over the last few seasons, Boulter had been 0-4 in WTA quarterfinals in her career prior to beating Dart 6-3, 7-5.

"I feel like I've worked so hard for this moment, and overcome some really tough times," Boulter said after the match. "It was a really tough battle, and an incredible achievement by both of us to be here.

"I think it just shows how far we've come. There's a lot of talk about if we've had the next players coming up from a lot of the press, and I feel like we've really shown this week that there's a lot of depth in British tennis, and I hope we keep looking at that and looking at the positives, because this week's been tremendous for British players."

Boulter will play Watson in the semifinals, assuring the tournament of its second British finalist since it was elevate to a WTA level event in 2015. Johanna Konta reached the final three times, and won it in 2021.

Watson, a one-time world No. 38 in 2015, needed to qualify for this tournament at her current place of No. 195 in the WTA rankings. She's the lowest-ranked of the trio of Brits remaining (Boulter is ranked No. 126 and Burrage, No. 131) but the four-time WTA singles champion called their collective achievement this week "absolutely brilliant."

"I'm just so happy to be through to the semifinals on home soil," Watson, now 31 years old, said after beating Switzerland's Viktorija Golubic. "I'm really proud of myself for just continuing to fight through the ups and the downs. The reason I fight through is for moments like this, to play on courts like this, in front of crowds like you.

"I got asked in press about my thoughts on British women's tennis at the moment, and I know that all the girls, we're all ranked in the mid-100 range, and I know from practicing with them all the time and how I feel about my own game, that we're all ranked not where our games our at. We're all playing a lot better than that, so I'm not surprised that it's three British players in the semifinals."

The trio earned their opportunity after upsets in the early rounds of the event: All eight seeds fell prior to the quarterfinals, which included two Top 10 players. Top seed Maria Sakkari lost in the second round to France's Alizé Cornet, and No. 2 seed and defending champion Beatriz Haddad Maia lost her first match to Ukrainian lucky loser Daria Snigur.

One of those upsets was at the hands of Burrage, who knocked out Australian Open semifinalist and No. 3 seed Magda Linette 7-5, 6-3 in the second round.

"This week's given me so much confidence, especially after not playing a lot recently," Burrage, playing in just her ninth tour-level event, said. "The confidence it gives me is massive."