British primary Cameron Norrie was crushed in straight units by Russia’s Aslan Karatsev within the Zhuhai Championships quarter-finals.
World quantity 17 Norrie, 28, who was the second seed in China, misplaced 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (7-5) to the world quantity 63.
Karatsev, 30, who knocked out Andy Murray within the final 16, edged one other hard-fought contest on Sunday.
He’ll face both Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff or Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka within the semi-finals.
After dropping the primary set, Norrie backed up a break of serve to go 3-1 up within the second after which served for the set at 5-4.
However Karatsev broke again earlier than once more edging out Norrie in a tie-break.
Russian prime seed Karen Khachanov takes on American Sebastian Korda within the second semi-final.
Norrie was enjoying in his first singles event since reaching the US Open’s spherical of 32 and was a part of the staff that helped Britain attain the ultimate eight of the Davis Cup final week.