Andy Murray of Britain poses with the trophy after beating David Ferrer of Spain 7-5, 6-4 in the final of the Shanghai Rolex Masters at the Qizhong Tennis Center in suburban Minhang District yesterday.

Andy Murray beat Spain's David Ferrer 7-5, 6-4 to claim the Shanghai Rolex Masters title yesterday and move ahead of Swiss Roger Federer in the rankings for the first time in his career.

The victory completed a stunning Asian hat-trick for Murray and allowed the seemingly unstoppable Scot to leapfrog 16-time grand-slam champion Federer into third spot in the ATP list.

Murray's 25th victory from 26 matches - his only loss coming to world No. 2 Rafael Nadal of Spain - sends Federer out of the top three for the first time in eight years.

Murray has now won three titles in as many weeks on the Asian swing of the ATP World Tour - his best winning streak - after his victories in Bangkok, Thailand; and Tokyo, Japan.

"If you finish in front of Federer in a year, then there's not many people in the last five, six, seven years that have been able to say that," said Murray.

After accepting the trophy on court, Murray said a few words to the crowd in Chinese. "Da shi, shi bu ke dang," which roughly translates to "Masters are unstoppable."

Murray's reached a career-high ranking of No. 2 in 2009 but has never finished the year higher than No. 4. Federer reached the final in Shanghai last year but skipped this year's tournament, costing him valuable points.

The 30-year-old Federer, who will finish a season without a grand slam title for the first time since 2002, is expected to return for the Swiss Indoors in Basel but still has to defend a number of points after winning the ATP World Tour Finals in London last year.

"I'm still not guaranteed to finish (the year) at No. 3; I'm still going to have to win some more matches," Murray said. "This is the best tournament run of my life. I was very nervous as I wanted to retain the title."

The defending champion broke the third-seeded Ferrer in the first game but a catalogue of errors then undermined his hard work at the Qi Zhong Tennis Center in suburban Minhang District.

Spaniard Ferrer, hoping for revenge for his 2-6, 3-6 semifinal loss to Murray last weekend, double-faulted with the first set poised at 5-5.

The Scot leaped on the error and produced a pair of aces to secure the set.

World No. 5 Ferrer was seeking his first Masters title but his hopes were dashed by an increasingly dominant Murray who ran him ragged for much of the second set.

The Briton lobbed to break Ferrer at 1-1, broke again to repel the Spaniard's last-ditch rally and finished off the match with a sizzling forehand.

"It is difficult to beat Andy at the moment; he is playing very confidently," said Ferrer.