ANDY MURRAY missed out on a place in the semi-finals of the BNP Paris Masters after a straight sets defeat to Novak Djokovic.

The Serb edged into the lead after claiming a hard-fought first set before easing to victory in the second with three breaks of the Murray serve.

Djokovic triumphed 7-5, 6-2, in one hour and 41 minutes.

The first set progressed on serve, although Murray survived a scare in the eighth game after a successful review when Djokovic had appeared to have claimed the first break of the match, only for the ball to be shown to be out.

The game returned to 40-40 and Murray went on to hold, but the Serb went on to claim the first set after eventually breaking his opponent in the 12th game in 64 minutes.

Murray broke Djokovic early in the second set to take a 2-1 lead, but the world No.1 hit back immediately with a break of his own to level it at 2-2.

Djokovic then held serve and forced another break before taking a 5-2 lead - meaning he had won four successive games - with Murray needing to up the ante.

However, the Serb quickly put the world No.8 out of his misery with his third consecutive break, Murray crashing the ball into the net from a forehand to exit the tournament at the quarter-final stage. His work was part-done already, though, having qualified for the end-of-season Tour finals in London on Thursday.

Djokovic admitted he always anticipates a tough match against Murray. He said: "We know what to expect - the matches will be very long, they will be physical with long rallies and long exchanges and whoever is calmer at the important moments comes up with one or two good shots at the right time can prevail and that's what happened.

"The first set was very close and had some break opportnities and held my service games pretty good and then I made a crucial break at the end of the first.

"He was a break up in the second but then some double faults allowed me to come back and get back to the second set and after that I just started swinging through it much better."

Murray said: "I was up a break in the second set. The first set was fairly close. But we'll see in London maybe after a little break. I can still take confidence in the last few weeks. Hopefully I can put in a good performance in London. But I feel like my game's not that far away against those guys."