ANTWERP, Belgium, Dec 12: World champion Peter Nicol of Britain had to hang on desperately before clinging to his title in a 1-3/4 hour thriller against world number seven Anthony Ricketts in the World Open quarterfinals on Wednesday.

Nicol’s 12-15 15-12 11-15 15-10 15-8 win was in doubt for the first four games and at one stage he trailed the Australian until 7-8 in the fourth game while two games to one down.

His semi-final opponent will be former team mate, Scottish international John White, the world number five, who earlier beat unseeded Englishman Simon Parke 16-17 15-10 15-6 15-7.

Nicol, the top seed, needed all his creativity in the front part of the court as well as his experience and renowned ability to hit a consistent and disciplined line and length.

Ricketts, 22, who has great speed and a fierce-hitting attack but a slightly high error ratio, showed his intentions to reduce this with a 100-shot rally in the first game.

Nicol once left the court in that game to argue with the referee about a penalty stroke decision, claiming the ball had struck his foot, not his shirt, and often looked a little tense.

But the champion played an excellent second game, patiently setting up chances that he put away impeccably, only to find Ricketts answering with some potent attacks, which Nicol could not contain in the third game.

From 10-9 the Australian hit two fine kills and a great cut-off volley to take that game, and kept up the high-speed pressure in the fourth.

Only some desperate retrieving by Nicol and one or two mistakes by Ricketts enabled the champion to survive.

The turning point was when Ricketts lobbed out to go 0-5 down in the final game, and then swore at the referee when he called it out.

That got him a code violation penalty point to go 0-6 and he slammed the next ball angrily down to go 0-7.

“I needed everything I had to come through that,” said Nicol. “It was just a bit of experience which got me through. I think he was a bit demoralised with getting so close in the fourth and losing it.

“He didn’t do anything wrong. I just dug in. The big thing was that I had played matches like that under pressure on a big occasion and he hadn’t.”

Australian-born White became the first player to reach the semifinals as he ended the giant-killing comeback of Parke, the former world number three, who five years ago recovered from cancer and this year came back from a serious ankle injury.

Parke had defeated two seeded Australians, Joe Kneipp and Stewart Boswell, but was taken to five games in both and those drawn-out battles seemed to have taken something out of him.

This time it always seemed that once the brilliantly gifted White had won the second game he would make Parke do too much running to be able to win another long contest.

White revelled in cool conditions that helped him generate plenty of opportunities for his angles, boasts, and subtle volley drops and after he forged an eight-point lead in the third game a frustrated Parke tossed his racket high in the air.

An early lead in the fourth game left Parke only with his courage and willingness to retrieve as significant weapons and they were never going to be enough against an opponent who has been in the best form of his career.

“I live in Nottingham so we have a lot of training sessions together,” said White. “I know that even when he is down and out he is able to win. He’s been out for a while with injury and he will get back to the top 10.

“I love this (Perspex) court. I have great rallies on this. It’s great to be the first into the semifinals. And it would be even greater to win the world title with my father here.”

Results (x denotes seeded player):

Quarterfinals: Peter Nicol (Eng x1) bt Anthony Ricketts (Aus x9) 12-15, 15-12, 11-15, 15-10, 15-8); John White (Sco x5) bt Simon Parke (Eng) 16-17, 15-10, 15-6, 15-7.—Reuters