Djokovic and Shelton knocked out in second round of ATP 500 in Basel
On Thursday 29 October 2026 in Basel, Novak Djokovic and top seed Ben Shelton both lost. Jan-Lennard Struff beat the Serb, and Swiss wildcard Jerome Kym beat the American.
Author: Editorial teamPublished: 2 min read
Thursday's night session of the second round at the Swiss Indoors Basel (ATP 500, indoor hard courts) brought two major upsets. Novak Djokovic and Ben Shelton were both knocked out of the singles.
Djokovic loses to Struff
The Serb, seeded fourth, was playing in Basel for the first time in 15 years. He won the tournament there in 2009. This time he lost to Struff 7:6(4), 5:7, 6:7(5). The German is 36 and ranked 47th in the ATP rankings.
Struff played boldly and often came to the net. He was never broken and served 27 aces, including the last one on match point. After the match he said he knew he had to take risks, because he had lost his previous eight meetings with Djokovic easily. He was happy with his performance and the result. In the quarter-finals he will face Portugal's Nuno Borges.
Shelton beaten by a wildcard
Kym, a 23-year-old Swiss ranked 222nd, entered on a wildcard. He beat the top-seeded American 6:3, 6:7(4), 7:6(1). The match lasted almost two and a half hours and finished 40 minutes after midnight.
Shelton is currently ranked fourth in the world. It is the biggest win of Kym's career. According to the source, he is the lowest-ranked player to beat a top-ten opponent this season. Swiss fans had waited for a home player to beat a top-ten opponent since October 2024, when Stan Wawrinka beat Andrey Rublev, then seventh in the world, in Stockholm.
The rest of the tournament
In the quarter-finals Kym will play Czech player Jiri Lehecka. Lehecka, seeded eighth, won 7:5, 6:4 on Thursday against Germany's Daniel Altmaier, who entered the main draw as a "lucky loser" from qualifying.
The main draw runs until 1 November 2026. The singles champion will receive 500 ranking points and a cheque for €483,300. The tournament's total prize fund is €2.584m.
The Sportowe Fakty website notes that the defeat could be costly for Djokovic. It also asks whether he will qualify for the 2026 ATP Finals. However, the source gives no details of his ranking situation.
Sources
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Photos
- Cover: „tennis, racket, court, clay, ball”, author: StockSnap, licence Pixabay Content License; cropped or resized.
- Photo 1: „tennis, ball, paddle, sport, exercise”, author: SoyKhaler, licence Pixabay Content License; cropped or resized.
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