Andy Murray Works Hard To Qualify For The ATP World Tour Finals In London

Andy Murray, who recently dropped to his lowest world ranking in six years at no. 10, needs to work hard to qualify for the ATP World Tour Finals in London. The ATP World Tour Finals only features the top 8 world ranked tennis players and thus far, the Scot is in an unfamiliar position after dropping his ranking.

At this point, Murray has four men ahead of him who are also aiming for a spot at the ATP World Tour Finals and with the Davis Cup and US Open Series being out of the picture, the tennis tours limelight is now at the lucrative and glamorous Asian Swing.

3 weeks in China starts today...shenzhen, beijing and shanghai. Hoping for a strong end to a tough year, thanks for the support

— Andy Murray (@andy_murray) September 21, 2014

The three-week Asian swing includes five-tournament phase, which will start this week at the inaugural Shenzhen Open and the Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur. It will China's first time to host tournaments across all three ATP categories of Masters, 500 and 250.

Andy Murray who is seeded second in Shenzhen has a lot of motivation to try and win his upcoming tournaments. Despite declaring in New York that the London ATP World Tour Finals is not his priority, he took a wild card for the tournament on top of his Beijing and Shanghai tournaments. Currently ranked no. 11 to qualify for the ATP finals, the 27-year-old has to go the extra mile to secure his slot.

Tomas Berdych occupies the eighth and final spot, and Murray needs to outrank either Grigor Dimitrov and Milos Raonic, who are locked together at no. 9 and 10, to make it to the tournament.

"I'm excited to announce that I will play in the China Open," said Murray in his blog. "I have some great memories of playing tennis in China over the years, I love the country and there are plenty of passionate fans here who enjoy their tennis, so I'm looking forward to competing."