Clara Tauson continued her promising form, but it wasn't enough to overcome Czech star Karolina Muchova on Thursday evening.
Muchova won the quarter-final of the WTA 500 tournament in Bad Homburg 1-6, 6-2, 6-4 after just over two hours of play.
Tauson, on Monday and Wednesday, at times played some of her best tennis after several months of poor results and physical problems.
And on Thursday, the 23-year-old Dane delivered what may be her best set of 2026.
The first set was a powerful display by a strong Tauson, who made a minimum of errors and, thanks to a strong serve and an excellent return game, dominated the fourth-seeded Muchova.
29-year-old Muchova, who, unlike Tauson, has had a good 2026 in terms of results, then settled into her stride in the second set.
It was a much more even match than the first set, which took only 25 minutes to complete, and unfortunately for Tauson, the match tipped in favor of the world No 11.
The decisive factor was, among other things, that Tauson's winning points in her own service games dropped from 80 to below 50 percent from the first to the second set.
Tauson showed good morale, fending off six break points and never giving up, but the stability disappeared from her game, and the experienced Muchova carried the momentum into the decisive third set.
She took advantage of this to break Tauson to both 1-0 and 4-1, and the match seemed decided. However, Tauson then recovered her great rhythm from the first set to make the match exciting again.
After three successive games, the Dane carved out another break point to make the match completely even again, but Muchova found a couple of big serves and took the victory.