Andy Murray eased past Canada's Vasek Pospisil 6-4, 6-4 to keep alive his prospects of securing a place at the ATP World Tour Finals in London next month.
The Scot, seeded second, assured himself of 45 points by advancing to the quarter-finals of the Erste Bank Open, and can double that points haul if he beats the German Jan-Lennard Struff tomorrow.
However, his place in the quarter-finals was matched by David Ferrer, the No.1 seed, while four of their rivals for the three berths still available at the O2 also reached the last eight in Moscow or Stockholm where the rewards are the same.
The Czech Tomas Berdych and Grigor Dimitrov, of Bulgaria, are at opposite ends of the draw in Stockholm while Marin Cilic is No.2 seed in Moscow. The only surprise casualty today was the Canadian Milos Raonic, the No.1 seed in Moscow who went down in three sets to Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania and had to settle for a meagre 20 ranking points.
The rewards for making further progress to the semi-finals, final (150 points) or winning their respective events (250) will not be decisive in the hunt for the last places in London.
All the contenders will be back in action next week in Valencia - Murray will join Kei Nishikori, Cilic, Berdych and Ferrer - or Basle, where Raonic and Dimitrov will be in the draw alongside the already-qualified Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Stanislas Wawrinka.
The rewards at both will be exactly double those available in Vienna, Stockholm and Moscow - 500 for winners, 300 for runners-up, 180 for semi-finalists, 90 for quarter-finalists and 45 for second-round losers - but it will be in Paris the following week, where the points will be double in value again that the decisive moves will be made.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article