Nadal beats Tomic to reach Stuttgart semi-finals

Rafael Nadal made hard work of winning through to the semi-finals of the Stuttgart Open, with the Spaniard struggling to put away Bernard Tomic 6-4, 6-7 (5/7), 6-3 on Friday. 

After scraping to victory in two matches which required a total of almost five hours on the grass, the top seed now finds himself in a Saturday contest with Gael Monfils. 

The French fourth seed beat German Philipp Kohlschreiber 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 in their earlier quarter-final. 

 Nadal, a two-time Wimbledon champion, is trying to forget his poor spring clay season and concentrate on his most difficult surface in the run-up to Wimbledon, which starts on June 29.