World No. 1 Rafael Nadal was on Thursday dumped out of the $3.24-million Shanghai Masters in the third round by Austrian 13th seed Jurgen Melzer.
It was only the ninth defeat of the season for the Spaniard, who came into this tournament on the heels of victory in the Japan Open last week.
It was also the first time since the 2009 French Open that he has failed to progress further than the third round: in the 21 tournaments since then, Nadal has reached at least the quarterfinal stage.
Despite never having taken a set off Nadal in their three previous encounters, Melzer stormed the first set here, winning 6-1.
Nadal claimed the second, 6-3, but the Austrian ranked 12th in the world rankings, took the third, decisive set 6-3 to set up a quarterfinal against either Juan Monaco or Mischa Zverev.
Murray qualifies
Andy Murray became the fourth man to qualify for the season's final event as he defeated Jeremy Chardy 6-3, 6-4 to reach the quarterfinals.
Fellow London qualifier and World No. 2 Novak Djokovic continued his red-hot form, with the two-time Beijing champion hammering Richard Gasquet 6-1, 6-1.
Elsewhere in the third round on another rainy day, Swedish fifth seed Soderling beat Spaniard David Ferrer 7-5, 6-4 while No. 15 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga stopped Florian Mayer 7-5, 6-3 to line-up against Murray. Spain's Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who beat Nadal in the Bangkok semifinals a fortnight ago, put out Czech seventh seed Tomas Berdych 7-6(4), 6-3.
Paes, Bhupathi advance
India's Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhuptahi advanced to the doubles second round with their respective partners after getting a first-round bye. Paes and his new partner Jurgen Melzer of Austria are seeded third. They will take on Brazil's Thomaz Belluci and Serbia's Janko Tipsaveric in the quarterfinals.
Bhupathi and his Belarusian partner Max Mirnyi are seeded fifth. U.S. Open finalists Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi also advanced to the quarterfinals with a 7-6(7), 6-2 win over Mark Knowles of Bahamas and Philipp Kohlschreiber.
The results: Third round: Jurgen Melzer bt Rafael Nadal 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, Robin Soderling bt David Ferrer 7-5, 6-4, Novak Djokovic bt Richard Gasquet 6-1, 6-1, Andy Murray bt Jeremy Chardy 6-3, 6-4, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez bt Tomas Berdych 7-6(4), 6-3, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga bt Florian Mayer 7-5, 6-3.
