Fourth seed Fernando Verdasco continued his march towards the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals and eliminated two of his qualification competitors Friday with a quarter-final win at the Valencia Open 500, an ATP World Tour 500 tennis tournament.

The 2004 champion cruised past seventh seed Tommy Robredo 6-3, 6-2 to reach his fifth tour-level semi-final of the season, also ending his fellow Spaniard’s campaign to qualify for the eight-man season finale.

Verdasco’s victory also saw the end of Gilles Simon’s bid in the Battle for London. The fifth-seeded Frenchman, who was defeated 6-4, 6-4 by in-form Russian Mikhail Youzhny, had started the week more than 900 points behind Verdasco and needed to at least match the Spaniard’s result this week to keep his hopes alive.

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The 25-year-old Verdasco, who captured the Pilot Pen Tennis title (d. Querrey) in New Haven and reached the Australian Open semi-finals (l. to Nadal), today added a further 90 points to his total taking him to 3210, 380 points clear of ninth-placed Robin Soderling. The Spaniard is bidding to reach the season finale, held this year at The O2 in London, for the first time.

Nikolay Davydenko stayed on track in his bid to qualify for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals by defeating Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-4, 7-6(3). The Russian, who is in pole position to qualify for the season finale at No. 7 in the year-to-date South African Airways 2009 ATP Rankings, today added 90 points to his total, distancing himself from No. 8 Verdasco by 330 points. On his fourth appearance at the season climax last year, Davydenko finished runner-up to Novak Djokovic.

The 28-year-old Davydenko secured the only service break of the first set in the third game and quickly opened up a 2-0 lead in the second set. The No. 47-ranked Garcia-Lopez fought back to level at 2-2 and, when Davydenko broke once more to lead 3-2, hit back again to force a tie-break. The second-seeded Davydenko was quick to take charge in the tie-break, though, and raced to a 5-1 lead before going on to seal victory after one hour and 56 minutes.

Davydenko excelled in the Asian swing to make a strong push for qualification. The Volgograd resident, who had already won two ATP World Tour titles in July, added to his collection at the Proton Malaysian Open, Kuala Lumpur 2009 (d. Verdasco) and the Shanghai ATP Masters 1000 presented by Rolex (d. Nadal).

Davydenko next will meet World No. 23 Youzhny, who advanced to his fifth ATP World Tour semi-final of the year after saving all 11 break points he faced in the 96-minute victory over Simon. In improving to a 5-0 record over Simon, the Muscovite also converted two of the four break point opportunities he created.

The 27-year-old Youzhny is enjoying a strong finish to his campaign and in the past month has reached back-to-back ATP World Tour finals at the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships (l. to Tsonga) in Tokyo and the Kremlin Cup (d. Tipsarevic) in Moscow. Earlier in the season, the right-hander also advanced to the final at the BMW Open (l. to Berdych) in Munich.

Top seed Andy Murray made smoother progress Friday as he set up a semi-final clash with Fernando Verdasco courtesy of a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Spaniard Albert Montanes. The Scot, who had toiled for two hours and 22 minutes against Leonardo Mayer Thursday, broke in the opening game of the match and, despite relinquishing his lead in the sixth game, was able to break serve decisively in the ninth game. He then raced to a 4-0 lead in the second set before sealing victory after 73 minutes.

The 22-year-old Murray is one of three players this season to have won at least 60 matches (61-9 mark) and, together with Rafael Nadal, leads the ATP World Tour with five titles in 2009, triumphing most recently at the Rogers Cup (d. del Potro) in Montreal in August. The Dunblane native is returning from a six-week injury lay-off, having not played since representing Great Britain in the Davis Cup in September due to a wrist injury.

Murray, who entered his press conference with ice on his wrist said: "It doesn’t really hurt, but it’s always good to make sure you take care of parts of your body that have shown some kind of a weakness in the past. I think I played well today, and I hope I can play even better tomorrow because Verdasco is at a very high level."