Jérôme Kym beats world No. 4 Ben Shelton at Swiss Indoors Basel, reaching quarterfinal

A late finish in Basel

Jérôme Kym, ranked 222nd and playing on a wildcard, beat world No. 4 Ben Shelton of the United States 6-3, 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (7/1) in the second round of the Swiss Indoors in Basel. The match ran past midnight on Thursday, 29 October, and the final point came shortly before 1:00 on Friday, 30 October. Kym, 23, is now the only Swiss player left in the ATP 500 event, after Novak Djokovic (ranked 12th) lost to Jan-Lennard Struff (ranked 47th) earlier in the tournament. According to ATP statistics, Kym is the lowest-ranked player to beat a top-10 opponent this season. The win is the biggest of his career so far.

The third set turns on nerves

Kym won the opening set 6-3 with two breaks of serve. Shelton, who reached the US Open final in early September, raised his level in the second set, which went to a tiebreak he won 7-4. Kym had been two points from victory twice before that tiebreak. In the decider he broke for 2-1 and again for 5-2, and for a while the match looked settled. He then lost four consecutive games, and Shelton moved ahead 6-5 in games. Kym leveled at 6-6 with a game to love and won the tiebreak 7-1, shortly before 1:00 on Friday, 30 October.

Asked about the collapse, Kym said he could not explain how he had come through the late stages of the set.

“I honestly don't know how I survived that at 5-6.”

Kym's reaction

Kym still had trouble finding words shortly after the match, and he fell back on a basic explanation: point by point. In the tiebreak he told himself to yell after each point he won, pump his fist and show Shelton how badly he wanted it. He said the result still surprised him:

“It feels surreal. But I really believed that I could beat him.”

He described the atmosphere as electric despite the late hour and a crowd that was smaller than at the start. He calls the Swiss Indoors his home tournament and describes himself as a big FC Basel fan. Asked whether this was his best result, he pointed first to his run at the 2025 US Open, where he reached the third round as a qualifier and beat Brandon Nakashima, the world No. 31, before conceding that this win was probably bigger.

Ranking gain and the quarterfinal

Kym is assured of climbing about 60 places in the rankings. Before Basel he had reached the semifinals of two Challenger events, and in mid-October he lost his last match to fellow Swiss Mika Brunold. He meets Jiri Lehecka of the Czech Republic in the quarterfinal on Friday, 30 October, around 20:00. Lehecka ended Stan Wawrinka's career on the evening of Tuesday, 27 October, which gives the match an extra link to the Swiss veteran.