British number one Andy Murray recorded a hard-fought win over Kevin Anderson at the Valencia Open to boost his hopes of qualifying for the ATP World Tour Finals.
Murray won 6-7 (3-7), 6-4, 6-4 to reach the semifinals, where he will face Spain's David Ferrer in a key contest in terms of ATP Finals places.
Top seed Ferrer beat Thomaz Bellucci 6-1, 6-2 and will meet Murray for the third week in a row on Saturday. The Spaniard is 10th in the Race to London, two places behind Murray, The BBC reported.
Murray said that the next match would be an important match, as was last week and also in Shanghai. But, he said that even if he does not win the tournament this week, he would still have an opportunity in Paris if he plays well there.
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Four places remain on offer following the news that Nadal has ended his season to undergo surgery to remove his appendix.
Murray's situation improved when Canada's Milos Raonic, currently ninth in the standings, lost to David Goffin in the Basel quarter-finals.
The Scot, who had coach Amelie Mauresmo courtside for the first time since the US Open in September, kept up his charge as he battled his way to a 16th win in 18 matches, despite struggling on serve early on and berating himself furiously.
With only the best six results outside of the Grand Slams and Masters events counting, Murray needed to reach the semi-finals in Valencia to add to his points tally.
Murray said that it was very tough, and added that there were a lot of long games, long rallies. He said that he started to read Anderson's serve a little bit better at the end of the second set, adding that he was creating a lot of chances on his service games.
The Scot also said that he improved his serve throughout the match, and that was really the difference, but added that it was extremely close.
