LONDON, June 20 (Reuters) - ⁠Francisco Cerundolo became only the second Argentine to reach the ⁠Queen's Club Championships final as he battled past American Brandon Nakashima ‌6-7(5) 6-3 6-4 on Saturday.

For the third time in his four matches on the grass this week, he was taken to a deciding set but again stayed composed to ​set up a final against 2024 champion Tommy ⁠Paul.

American Paul beat Frenchman Ugo ⁠Humbert 6-3 6-3.

Cerundolo confessed this week to never having played on grass before ⁠turning ‌professional but the 27-year-old seventh seed showed the surface holds no fear for him as he edged past Nakashima in two ⁠hours and 43 minutes.

The only other Argentine to reach ​the Queen's final ‌was David Nalbandian in 2012 although that did not end well ⁠for Nalbandian, who ​was defaulted against Marin Cilic after kicking an advertising hoarding in anger and injuring a line judge.

"I stayed there competing. I was saying to the crowd, ⁠I'm leaving it all here on the ​court and it worked out. I'm super happy to be here, in this tournament, in the final," the world number 27 said after reaching his first ⁠ATP 500 final.

Nakashima twice recovered from having his service broken in the opening set before winning a tiebreak with some typically solid tennis. He also broke serve at 2-2 in the second set but Cerundolo managed to ​find another level.

He won a 30-stroke rally to ⁠break back and swept four games in succession to level the match.

Cerundolo forged ​ahead in the decider only to be ‌pegged back to 4-4 but Nakashima missed ​a routine volley to hand over another service break and Cerundolo finished the job.

(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar)