Shanghai: Rafael Nadal was upset by Florian Mayer 7-6 (5), 6-3 on Thursday at the Shanghai Masters, the second consecutive year he's failed to reach the quarter-finals at the tournament.
Andy Roddick advanced with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Spain's Nicolas Almagro. Roddick had 11 aces and 23 winners to beat the seventh-seeded Almagro.
Roddick will play third-seeded David Ferrer, who saved three match points against Juan Carlos Ferrero in a 1-6, 7-5, 6-2 win.
The 15th-seeded German Mayer pressured Nadal at the net throughout the third-round match, winning 21 of his 29 approaches.
Nadal saved two set points while serving at 4-5 in the first, but then gave away several crucial points in the tie-breaker, which Mayer clinched with an ace.
Mayer got the first break of the match at 3-3 in the second set when Nadal hit a shot into the top of the net. He converted another break on match point, running down a drop shot and flicking it past Nadal at the net.
The top-seeded Spaniard lost in the third round in Shanghai last year to Austria's Jurgen Melzer, just a few weeks after winning his first US Open title.
It's also just the second time in 16 tournaments this year that he has failed to make the quarter-finals. In August, he fell in the second round of the Canadian Open to Croatia's Ivan Dodig.
Defending champion Andy Murray, meanwhile, held off a late rally by Switzerland's Stanislas Wawrinka to advance to the quarter-finals with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 victory.
After dropping the second set, the second-seeded Scot broke Wawrinka twice to take a 5-0 lead in the third. But Wawrinka battled back to take the next three games before Murray finally closed it out.
"The first set I was up 3-0, two breaks, pretty quickly, and I went up 5-0 in the third set. Both sets got a little bit closer than maybe they needed to be," Murray said.
Ferrer was outplayed by his fellow Spaniard from the start, dropping his serve three times in the opening set and then facing three match points while serving at 4-5 in the second.
The third-seeded Spaniard hit two booming serves and a forehand winner to stay in the match, then broke a deflated Ferrero in the next game on his way to taking the set and the match.
"It was amazing, no?" said Ferrer, who secured his place in the ATP Tour World Finals with the victory. "I had three match balls down. I (served) very good in important moments. After this game I make the break up very fast."
Ferrer next plays the 10th-seeded Roddick, who had a far easier time against Almagro.
Roddick is trying to finish his season on a positive note after struggling with injuries, crashing out in the third round of Wimbledon and losing the No. 1 American ranking to Mardy Fish.
After reaching the quarter-finals of the US Open last month, Roddick fell in the first round of the China Open in Beijing and bristled at a question from a reporter about whether he was contemplating retirement.
His play against the 11th-ranked Almagro suggested retirement may be some way off: He won 91 percent of points on his first serve - 32 of 35 points - and captured 10 of 12 points at net. He never faced a break point.
France's Gilles Simon, the No. 8 seed, was beaten by Matthew Ebden, a qualifier from Australia ranked 124th, 6-2, 2-6, 7-6 (8). Ebden, who had only won eight matches on the ATP tour before Shanghai, closed it out on his fifth match point.
Ebden plays Murray next for a spot in the semi-finals.
"It will be a tough match," Murray said. "He's obviously just coming off the best win of his career, so he'll be confident."
Alexandr Dolgopolov dropped the first set against Australian teenager Bernard Tomic, then reeled off 12 of the last 13 games to win, 5-7, 6-1, 6-0. Kei Nishikori continued his good run - he stopped Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the second round - by beating Santiago Giraldo 7-6 (6), 4-6, 6-3.
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