Andy Murray can take a significant step towards booking a place at next month's Barclays ATP World Tour Finals by overcoming rival David Ferrer in today's final of the Vienna Open.

Victory for the Scot would make it two tournament wins in five weeks and boost his hopes of a place in the eight-man London event, the carrot which prompted him to make a late decision to go to Austria.

Win or lose today, the decision looks a good one as Murray added points to his tally, lifting him to a provisional eighth in the Race to London.

It is the first time he's been in an automatic qualifying spot for some weeks and he will be hoping to inflict a psychological and very real blow on Ferrer as the two vie for one of the remaining three spots available for London.

Ferrer would move above Murray to eighth if he wins today and though both players could yet make it to the O2 if, as suggested, Rafa Nadal pulls out to have surgery following appendicitis, Murray, in particular, will want to earn his way in.

"David will be tough for sure," Murray said after his cleanest performance of the week in beating Viktor Troicki of Serbia 6-4, 6-3 to reach the final. "I managed to win the big points. It was a bit better today. The previous matches my opponents have been big servers."

Having broken serve early on, Murray dropped his own serve in the sixth game, but pulled away to an impressive win that sets up a rematch with Ferrer, who beat him a fortnight ago in Shanghai.

The Spaniard looked in danger of missing out on the final when he trailed Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany 4-2 in the last set of a gruelling encounter.

But the German faltered just when he needed to be strong and Ferrer won the ensuing tie-break 7-3 to clinch a 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 victory.

Murray said when he won his first title of the year in Shenzhen last month that he hoped to at least finish the year on a high, but doubted he would change his schedule too much in a bid to qualify for London.

But an early loss in Shanghai convinced him to add Vienna and this week's event in Valencia to his plans, with the final qualifying event, the Masters 1000 event in Paris to follow the Spanish tournament.

With US Open champion Marin Cilic's place in London confirmed yesterday, three places remain available.

Though Kei Nishikori sits fifth in the Race to London, the Japanese will not be in Valencia next week "for personal reasons" and he could be threatened by the chasing pack.

It is led by Tomas Berdych in sixth, with Murray and Ferrer battling it out behind, all the time aware of Grigor Dimitrov coming through on their shoulders.

Berdych and Dimitrov will take points off each other today when they meet in the final of the Stockholm Open in Sweden.

Meanwhile, Jamie Murray missed out on a place in the doubles final in Stockholm when he and Australian partner John Peers lost to American Eric Butorac and South Africa's Raven Klaasen 6-7, 6-3, 10-6.