Goran Ivanisevic continued his surge towards regaining the No.1 spot in the Stanford Financial Champions Tour Rankings with a 7-6, 6-1 victory over Carl-Uwe Steeb in Graz.

The Croatian, who currently trails No.1 John McEnroe by 150 points on the Road to London, swept Steeb aside and now meets Austrian Alex Antonitsch for a place in the final.

Antonitsch also boasts a 100% record in Group B after a 6-3, 6-3 win over Karel Novacek.

Elsewhere, Sergi Bruguera began his Graz campaign with a straight sets defeat of Andrea Gaudenzi.

The players in each group face off in a round-robin format, and the top player from each group will contest Friday's final. Those who finish second in each group will play off for third and fourth places respectively.

Matches are contested over the best of three sets, with the deciding set taking the form of a Champions' Tie-break. The first player to reach 10 points in the Champions' Tie-break is the winner. If the score is level at 9-all, a two-point advantage is required.

McEnroe won the first event on the 2005 Delta Tour of Champions - the European section of the worldwide ATP Champions Tour - when he triumphed in Frankfurt in February. Sergi Bruguera overcame Pat Cash in the Doha final in April, and Goran Ivanisevic also beat Cash a week later in the Hong Kong final. Muster took the first clay court title of the year with victory in Rome in May, and then Cedric Pioline triumphed in Novi, Croatia in June. McEnroe won his second title of the year in the Algarve last week.

After Graz, the tour moves on to Paris, where another all-star field will do battle between the 15th and 18th of September.

Players compete for points throughout the year to qualify for The Champions Masters at the Royal Albert Hall in London, November 29 ? December 4. The top ten players in the Stanford Financial Champions Tour Rankings after all events are complete will qualify automatically. The field in London will increase to 12 with the addition of two wild cards.

To be eligible to compete on the ATP Champions Tour, players must have been either a World No.1 during their competitive playing careers, a Grand Slam singles finalist, or a singles player on a victorious Davis Cup team, and no longer active on the ATP tour. Each event can also invite two players of its choice to take wild cards.