Nadal, gunning for his fifth consecutive title in the principality, swept past Croatian Ivan Ljubicic 6-3 6-3 in his quarter-final while Murray battled past Russian eighth seed Nikolay Davydenko 7-6 6-4.

Spanish claycourt king Nadal, who has won his last 25 matches in the principality, thrashed Murray 6-1 6-2 in their previous confrontation, the final at Indian Wells last month.

Both had to contest two matches on Friday after rain wiped out most of the day's play on Thursday.

Nadal made mincemeat of Ecuador's Nicolas Lapentti 6-3 6-0 at lunchtime in a third-round match before taking on the big-serving Ljubicic around tea time.

Murray finished his third-round match against Italian qualifier Fabio Fognini, whom he beat 7-6 6-4, and ended Davydenko's resilience under the floodlights.

Facing a two-times French Open semi-finalist in Davydenko, Murray showed great composure to take the tie-break 7-1 before rallying from 4-1 down in the second set.

The 21-year-old Scot, who reached his first semi-final in a clay court tournament, won on his third match point when Davydenko returned long.

"Every time I play against Nikolay he makes me run a lot, so I was prepared for that going into the match," Murray said.

"I played a good tie-break, and (in the second set) I was down 4-1 and managed to fight back. It was a good day's work."

Nadal showed signs of irritation when Ljubicic, a 7-5 7-6 winner against Italian Simone Bolelli earlier in the day, cancelled out his early break.

He stayed focused, however, to break again and claim the opening set, keeping the pressure on Ljubicic to wrap up the win in 73 minutes.

"I think I played less than three hours, so that's always important," said Nadal, who spent 93 minutes on centre court with Lapentti.

On the other side of the draw, Novak Djokovic will line up against Swiss Stan Wawrinka in a Monte Carlo Open semi-final after both advanced.

Third seed Djokovic, fighting to maintain his place in the ATP rankings under heavy pressure from hard-charging Scot Andy Murray, advanced over Spanish seventh seed Fernando Verdasco 6-2, 4-6, 6-3.

"The courts were really wet, even today you could feel it," said the winner. "The balls were getting bald and really fast. It was tough to control, but overall I played really well.

"Today was a really good test, a really good match for me. I hung in there and just waited for my chances."

Wawrinka, the number 13, beat German qualifier Andreas Beck 6-2, 6-4 and will be aiming for revenge against Djokovic after losing to the Serb three times in 2008. Their last meeting came in the final of Rome 11 months ago.

Article from Eurosport UK