Murray through to Madrid quarter-finals

(GETTY IMAGES)

World number three Andy Murray clinched a place in the quarter-finals of the Madrid Open when he dispatched Spanish 16th seed Tommy Robredo 7-5 6-1 today.

The 21-year-old Briton, who turns 22 on Friday, has never won a tour title on clay and is looking to improve his record on the surface ahead of the French Open which starts later this month.

A single break of the Robredo serve in the 11th game of a tight first set and three more in the second were enough to seal a comfortable win and the Scot converted his first match point with a backhand return down the line.

He will play either Argentine fifth seed Juan Martin Del Potro or 11th-seeded Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka in the last eight on Friday.

Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic are all seeking places in the quarters on Thursday.

Swiss Federer plays 14th-seeded American James Blake, Djokovic of Serbia takes on unseeded Italian Andreas Seppi and Spaniard Nadal plays Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany.

World number one Nadal is chasing a sixth title of the season and a fourth on clay while Djokovic is bidding for a fifth consecutive final appearance and a third title of the year. Federer has yet to win an event in 2009.

In other third-round matches on Thursday, sixth seed Andy Roddick plays Nikolay Davydenko, number seven seed Fernando Verdasco meets wild card Juan Monaco and eighth seed Gilles Simon takes on Ivan Ljubicic.