The Czech, the 2011 champion and the finalist in Beijing last year, hit 16 winners while committing double the number of unforced errors to lose his opening match and now heads to Shanghai for his third event in the Asian country.
"I made one tournament title, the other one didn't go my way," Berdych said on the ATP website.
"(I'm) just going to try to do well in the third one, my last one.
"It's always a difficult part of the year. We have to travel a lot. The conditions are always very different, very difficult, week by week here in China. It's not easy to adjust."
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Spaniard David Ferrer, fresh from winning his fourth title of the year in Malaysia on Sunday, advanced to the quarter-finals in Beijing with a 7-6(5) 6-2 win against Czech Lukas Rosol.
Ferrer's countryman Rafa Nadal also made his way through to the last eight with a 7-6(3) 6-4 win over Vasek Pospisil in the final match of the evening.
After both players failed to break each other's serve in the opening set, Nadal, who beat his former practice partner Wu Di of China in the first round, got the all important break in the fifth game of the second and then served the match out.
Taiwan's wild card entrant Lu Yen-hsun and American Jack Sock also advanced to the quarter-finals.
In the women's draw, Pole Agnieszka Radwanska reached the last eight when her opponent Madison Keys retired with a thigh injury after losing the first set 6-3.
"Of course, this is not the way that I wanted to end up that match," she said on the WTA website. "But as we all know the year is ending soon and we can see a couple of retirements.
"Hopefully she will get better soon."
Next up for Radwanska in the quarter-finals will be German Angelique Kerber who brushed aside Caroline Wozniacki 6-2 6-3, ending the Dane's chances of qualifying for the WTA Finals in Singapore.
Rising star Garbine Muguruza, who reached this year's Wimbledon final, won her second round match 6-2 6-1 against American qualifier Irina Falconi and is now one victory away from qualifying for Singapore.
(Writing by Sudipto Ganguly; editing by Toby Davis)
