Britain’s Andy Murray extended his winning run to eight matches as he beat Switzerland’s Dominic Stricker to reach the last four of the Nottingham Open.

Three-time Grand Slam champion Murray, 36, is hoping to move into the world’s top 32 to be seeded for Wimbledon.

In the women’s event, three British players reached the semi-finals too.

Heather Watson and Katie Boulter meet in one semi-final, while Jodie Burrage will face France’s Alize Cornet after she beat American Elizabeth Mandlik.

“This week has been great and a couple of weeks ago we were hearing that British tennis is not doing well,” said Murray after completing a 7-6 (7-2) 7-5 victory.

“You want all the players to reach their potential. Not everyone is going to win Wimbledon or a Grand Slam, but you want everyone to make the most of this opportunity to play tennis.

“The women have done really well and it should be a fun weekend for the British fans. It’s rare that we have so many players in the later stages of a tournament.”

For Murray, given a wildcard to play in this event, he is the top seed at 44th in the world and trying to get into the top 32 before Wimbledon, which begins on 3 July.

He had not dropped a set in his last two wins at Surbiton and also the first two matches at Nottingham – against Joris de Loore of Belgium and Frenchman Hugo Grenier.

Eighth seed Stricker took Murray to a tie-break in the opening set, which the Briton won 7-2 and included a superb passing winner with Stricker at the net.

Stricker, 117th in the rankings, also broke Murray’s serve in the fourth game of the second set, but the advantage only lasted a few minutes before the Scot immediately broke back.

Murray then broke 20-year-old Stricker’s serve in the 11th game of the second set before serving out to seal the success.

“It was a really tight match against one of the best young players in the world,” he added. “He has a really good game, huge shots from the back of the court and a nice touch at the net so I’m really glad to get through.

“That was the best I’ve played in the last two weeks in terms of how I hit the ball, so that’s really positive.”

Britain’s George Loffhagen, 414th in the world, had never previously won a match at Challenger Tour level before he beat Finland’s Otto Virtanen and China’s Shang Juncheng, ranked 131st and 176th respectively.

But the 22-year-old could not repeat the feat in his quarter-final against fifth-seeded Dominik Koepfer, who won in three sets, 7-5 4-6 6-3.

Koepfer plays unseeded Frenchman Arthur Cazaux in Sunday’s final.

Skupski and Koolhof reach final in the Netherlands

Britain’s Neal Skupski, along with Dutch team-mate Wesley Koolhof have reached the men’s doubles final of the Libema Open in Rosmalen, the Netherlands.

The pair won 6-2 6-2 against the pairing of American Maxime Cressy and France’s Fabrice Martin.

Skupski and Koolhof will now play the duo of Gonzalo Escobar of Ecuador and Aleksandr Nedovyesov in the final.

In the Stuttgart Open in Germany, American third seed Frances Tiafoe is now the highest-ranked player left in the tournament after he beat Lorenzo Musetti of Italy 6-7 (6-8) 7-6 (7-4) 6-2 to move into the semi-finals.

Top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas lost to Richard Gasquet in the last 16 on Thursday, before the Frenchman was beaten by unseeded German Jan-Lennard Struff 6-4 7-5 in the quarter-finals on Friday.

Elsewhere, there were wins for Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz and Hungarian qualifier Marton Fucsovics over Australia’s Christopher O’Connell and American second seed Taylor Fritz respectively.