Alex de Minaur has improved his chances of taking part in the season-ending ATP Finals in Italy by booking his spot in the China Open quarter-finals.
The third-seeded Australian needed three sets and two hours 18 minutes to defeat Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech 6-3 3-6 7-6 (7-2) in his second Beijing outing.
With a Tour-leading 33 wins on hard courts this season, the current world No.8 consolidated his position in the ATP Live Race To Turin in eighth place, the last spot available to reach the November finals.
In a contest that featured just two breaks of serve, one for each player in their winning sets, Rinderknech finally succumbed in a third-set tiebreaker after having saved three match points.
Chasing a second title win for the year, 26-year-old de Minaur will take on world No.19 Jakub Mensik in the last-eight after the young Czech star defeated Frenchman Arthur Cazaux 6-3 2-6 6-4.
If de Minaur can get past Mensik, the likelihood of a semi-final with Jannik Sinner, his nemesis, looms, with the Italian world No.2 having laboured a little before beating Frenchman Terence Atmane 6-4 5-7 6-0 in his last-16 clash.
Sinner, who lost the US Open final to Carlos Alcaraz three weeks ago, had dropped only four games in his first-round match against Croatian veteran Marin Cilic but was given more of an examination from the world No.68 Atmane.
Sinner next meets Hungarian Fabian Marozsan, who beat another Frenchman Alexandre Muller 6-3 7-6 (7-5) in the round-of-16.
