Johanna Konta admitted that home support had helped her to make history after she became the first British woman to reach the Wimbledon semi-finals since the seventies.

The 26-year-old, who had already ended the 33 year wait since Jo Durie was the last Brit to reach the women’s singles quarter-finals, is aiming to become the first since Virginia Wade, four decades ago, to win the title.

And she edged a step closer as, urged on by a noisy Centre Court crowd, revelling in the action under its roof on a rain affected day, she came from a set behind to beat second seed Simona Halep 6-7, 7-6, 6-4.

The day after Rafael Nadal’s exit after losing the fifth set of his epic fourth round match against Gilles Muller, Konta found herself engaged in another Wimbledon classic as she earned the right to face Venus Williams, another of the sport’s all-time greats, for a place in the final.

As she fought back from losing the first set tie-break to win the second in another tie-break, before breaking Halep’s serve in the fifth game of the decider, then holding serve three times, her opponent complained about the crowd noise.

And the match was decided slightly controversially when an over-excited spectator squealed just as Konta was hitting what would prove her final shot.

A distracted Halep responded by hitting the ball limply into the net, but her protest was dimissed with a helpless shrug by umpire Kader Nouni and Konta also expressed some sympathy.

“I think there were a few points here and there where they got overenthusiastic, but I don't think that's necessarily specific to my match,” she observed, noting that the timing of the yelp had been more likely to affect her own shot rather than Halep’s.

“I'm pretty sure you had moments of that in epic battles that have happened throughout this Championships so far, and in every tournament.

“In terms of the home support I feel, I feel very excited and very humbled by it. When you get a massive crowd of people cheering, making that sort of noise in a stadium, you do get goosebumps.”

While Halep said that the crowd had generally been ‘very nice and very fair, she reckoned that the match should not have been allowed to end that way.

“I was surprised that that lady was screaming,” she said.

“I thought he's going to repeat the point. I think it's normal to repeat the point when someone is screaming like that.”

She also registered some concern about the length of time Konta was off court when she took a toilet break ahead of the deciding set, drily observing that “she does that all the time.”

However the Romanian, who could have become world number one if she had won the tournament following Angelique Kerber’s exit in the previous round, was generous in regard to Konta’s play.

“I think was a great tennis,” she said.

“Both of us played a good level. I was very close, again. In the tiebreak maybe I could serve better and stronger a little bit, then in the third set, the serve game that I lost was a little bit tough to still believe that I can break her because she was serving pretty well.

“There are many positives from this match and she played really well, so she deserves to win.”