JOSHUA Milton still can't crack the quarter-final code.

The 25-year-old from Cardiff had lost in the last eight of an ATP Challenger four times before his latest attempt yesterday in the Aegon Ilkley Trophy.

And that went the way of all the others as he lost 6-3, 6-3 to the Irish No 1 James McGee, who thus repeated the victory over the Briton that he achieved last week at Surbiton, also on grass.

The 28-year-old Dubliner now meets American Denis Kudla in today's semi-finals, while Australian Matthew Ebden faces Croatian Ivan Dodig in the other half of the draw.

The men's final is tomorrow but the women's final is not until Sunday, and they are a round behind.

There is still the chance of an all-German final between top seed Annika Beck and fourth seed Anna-Lena Friedsam or an all-Chinese decider between seventh seed Qiang Wang and the unseeded Yafan Wang.

However, the biggest threats to one nation being certain of victory are the in-form Anett Kontaveit of Estonia, who won the Eastbourne Challenger a fortnight ago and was a Surbiton semi-finalist last week, and second-seeded Czech Denisa Allertova.