Heaton professional Gary Henderson again showed his liking for competition yesterday afternoon when he reached the semi-finals of the men's singles at the Yorkshire Championships.

Having easily despatched qualifier Paul Wharton (Batley ITI) 6-1, 6-0 at Chapel Allerton Lawn Tennis and Squash Club, the 31-year-old defending champion then defeated last year's Wimbledon boys' doubles finalist Ben Riby 7-6 (7-4), 6-1 in the only quarter-final played.

While the first set of a match that was played entirely indoors because of rain switched this way and that, the second was a big let-down.

Henderson broke serve in the opening game, but lost his serve when he was leading 2-1 and again when he trailed 4-3.

Riby had two set points at 5-3, but then Henderson won four points in a row to break him as the set progressed towards a tie-break.

Here Henderson's delivery let him down horribly as he double-faulted on three of his opening four service points.

But the former British No 5 pulled himself together to take the sequence 7-5, and the less said about the anti-climactic second set the better.

"The first set is what tennis should all be about," admitted Henderson.

"I don't want to be winning matches 6-0, 6-0 at my age. I want to be involved in a scrap - say a 7-5 set or a tie-break.

"Ben's strength is his return so I had to take a few risks. There was no point in me rolling in a serve and seeing him blast it past me for a winner. I had to take a chance and hit my serve harder.

"But I was disappointed with Ben in the second set. He more or less gave up having lost the tie-break."

Riby's effort there will not have pleased watching York-shire men's captain Steve McLoughlin, who walked away from the contest during that second set, saying: "I have seen enough."

With 11 - Doug Keen is out of the equation because of work - vying for eight places and a reserve berth for County Week next week in Group One at Eastbourne, it won't have done Riby's chances any good.

In the first round, he beat Ilkley's Ross Connolly 6-1, 6-1, and Halifax's Richard Crabtree fell at the same stage to Ben Atkinson.

Bingley's Ben Pearson profited from a walkover against top seed Jonathan Marray.