Unheralded Harris eyes ATP semi-final win

South African Lloyd Harris knows he's the most unlikely of the semi-finalists at the Adelaide International.

He's the lowest-ranked - 91st - of the four players to feature in Friday night's semis at Memorial Drive.

Harris had to scrap through qualifying to get into the main draw.

But the 22-year-old has produced a barnstorming run to secure a semi-final against American Tommy Paul.

Canada's second seed Felix Auger-Aliassime meets Russia's third seed Andrey Rublev in the other semi.

The Cape Town-born Harris has so far banked a hat-trick of upsets - he has defeated the world No.36 (Cristian Garin), world No.50 Laslo Djere and world No.30 Pablo Carreno Busta.

But he's far from satisfied ahead of his second semi-final appearance at an ATP event - he lost the other, in Chengdu, China, last year.

"I was struggling in the last year and a bit (not) stringing a lot of matches together in the higher levels," he said.

"But I always felt like my game was there.

"Physically, I have improved a lot and that has allowed me to maintain a high level over a lot of matches ... starting this year.

"And that also helps you mentally, when you're feeling physically better out there, stronger, you know you have the game to do it."