Andy Murray has suffered a setback in his bid to qualify for the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals in London next month.

The Scot was beaten 2-6, 6-1 6-2 by David Ferrer in the last 16 of the Shanghai Masters today, a defeat which sees the Spaniard jump above him to ninth place in the qualifying race.

Only the top eight players in the standings at the end of this month will reach the O2 Arena finals,

Fresh from winning the tournament in Shenzhen and reaching the semi-finals of the China Open in Beijing last week, Murray made a strong start against the world number five.

The 27-year-old broke Ferrer in his first service game and dominated the opening set in which he only dropped four points on his own serve.

But Ferrer hit back straight away in the second as he started to attack Murray more and immediately earned his first break, which he built on to take the set comfortably.

As Murray’s game began to unravel Ferrer pressed home his advantage, breaking twice more in the decider while Murray failed to fashion a single break point opportunity.

However it is not all bad news for Murray, who still has three weeks of tournaments including the Paris Masters in which to muscle into the top eight.

While Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have already qualified, many of his rivals have struggled to make an impression in Shanghai.

Murray is now within touching distance of Milos Raonic, who withdrew in the first round due to illness, while Stan Wawrinka, Kei Nishikori, Marin Cilic and Grigor Dimitrov — who sits behind Murray in 11th place — all suffered earlier defeats.