Andy Murray has booked his passage into the quarter-finals at the Shenzhen Open in China and will now face Slovakian world number 85 Lukas Lacko.
Murray is desperate to reach the season-ending ATP World Tour finals and his quest took him to China, where he hopes to seal qualification by making the top eight.
The Scot, who started the week in 11th, was a cut above India’s Somdev Devvarman on Thursday, brushing aside his opponent 6-3 6-3 in 1 hour and 21 minutes.
Murray was pleased with his win in difficult conditions and will now play Lacko, who beat Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania 6-4 7-6 (7-1).
Murray said: “I thought I did pretty well. He (Devvarman) makes very few mistakes – he’s a solid player and he moves well.
“It was very humid out there. It was good to have a tough workout like that.”
Murray is the hot favourite at 1.05 to book his place in the semi-finals, while Lacko is 9.33 to pull off an upset.
Elsewhere, top seed David Ferrer suffered an upset as he was beaten 6-3 6-4 by Serbian qualifier Viktor Troicki.
Colombian sixth seed Santiago Giraldo ended the run of 18-year-old Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis 6-4 6-3.
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