Djokovic Upset by Struff in Basel as Shelton Falls to Kym

BASEL, Switzerland — Novak Djokovic returned to Roger Federer’s old stage chasing history. He left it wrestling with a very modern problem: Jan-Lennard Struff’s booming serve.

On a tense, late-night Basel court that has so often staged Federer’s coronations, the 24-time Grand Slam champion was bundled out of the Swiss Indoors on Thursday, beaten 6-7 (4), 7-5, 7-6 (5) by the 47th-ranked German in a bruising, serve-dominated contest.

No. 102 will have to wait. So will any dream of catching Federer’s 103 career titles in the Swiss icon’s hometown this week.

Djokovic, back in Basel for the first time in 15 years, found himself dragged into a serving shootout with a 36-year-old opponent who refused to blink. Struff cracked 27 aces, the last of them a laser down the middle on his third match point, leaving the 39-year-old Serb stranded and the crowd stunned.

Djokovic had stared down the second match point with an ace of his own, a defiant reminder of why he remains the sport’s ultimate closer. But the pressure kept coming. The German kept swinging. Eventually, even Djokovic ran out of escapes.

The loss cuts into a month that had already seen Djokovic add to his staggering haul with title No. 102 in Beijing. Only Jimmy Connors, with 109, sits above Federer’s 103 and Djokovic’s current mark in the all-time list.

Basel had seemed a fitting place for the chase to tighten. Djokovic won here in 2009, beating Federer in the final. A year later, Federer took the rematch on the same court where he once worked as a ballboy and went on to lift the trophy a record 10 times. This time, the arena produced a different kind of story: the veteran German with the massive serve knocking out one of the game’s greatest front-runners in a three-set knife fight.

Shelton stunned again as Swiss wild card Kym shocks Basel

If Djokovic’s exit shook the tournament, Ben Shelton’s departure blew a hole straight through its script.

The top seed and U.S. Open finalist was supposed to be one of the week’s main attractions. Instead, he walked off as the latest high-profile victim of a player ranked outside the top 200, losing 6-3, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (1) to 222nd-ranked Swiss wild card Jerome Kym in a raucous night session.

Shelton’s season has had peaks — four titles on three different surfaces — but the valleys are getting harder to ignore. Kym now joins No. 140 Otto Virtanen, who beat him at Wimbledon, and No. 117 Nikoloz Basilashvili, who took him out in Rome, on a growing list of triple-digit spoilers.

There is more. Shelton has also fallen this year to seven opponents ranked between 87 and 56, an odd contrast to his title-winning weeks that underlines the volatility still baked into his game.

For long stretches on Thursday, it looked as if he might wriggle free again. The No. 4-ranked American twice clawed back from the brink — two points from defeat while serving at 5-6 in the second set, and later from a seemingly hopeless position at 5-2 down with a double break in the decider, after midnight, when legs get heavy and decisions get slower.

He fought. He roared. He dragged the match into a final-set tiebreaker that felt like his natural territory.

Then Kym took it away from him.

The 23-year-old Swiss, a tall right-hander more accustomed to main draws only in his home country, rose with the moment. His level spiked in the breaker, his nerves held, and on match point he produced the shot of the night: a full-stretch backhand passing winner while sprinting toward the net, a strike that ripped past Shelton and detonated the home crowd.

Shelton’s racket dropped. Kym’s Basel story took flight.

The reward is a quarterfinal date with Jiri Lehecka on Friday, after the eighth-seeded Czech handled Daniel Altmaier 7-5, 6-4. For Kym, who came in as a wild card with little expectation beyond experience, the week has already turned into a career milestone.

Fils grinds through to a showdown with Fritz

Earlier in the day, the drama came with a different flavor.

Second seed Arthur Fils was forced into a three-set scrap by American Alex Michelsen before squeezing through 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (5). The Frenchman dropped a tight opening set, recalibrated, and slowly imposed his game, but Michelsen refused to fade, dragging the contest all the way to a deciding tiebreak.

Fils held his nerve there, edging it 7-5 to book his spot in the quarterfinals.

Waiting for him is another American, Taylor Fritz. The sixth seed delivered one of the more controlled performances of the day, easing past Denis Shapovalov 6-4, 6-3 with a clean, businesslike display that contrasted sharply with the chaos of the night session.

So Basel moves on without Djokovic and without its top seed Shelton. In their place: Struff’s thunder, Kym’s breakout, Fils’ resilience, Fritz’s efficiency. The legends have gone home. The draw belongs, for now, to the hunters.