Ben Shelton suffers unwanted feat which hasn’t happened in two years after shock defeat in Basel

Ben Shelton suffered a shock defeat in the second round of the Swiss Indoors in Basel.

Shelton was the top seed at the ATP 500 tournament in Basel, but had already been forced to overcome a scare in his first round match against his compatriot Aleksandar Kovacevic, where he came from a set down to win.

Despite this scare, the American was an even bigger favourite in his second round match, where Shelton played against world number 222 Jerome Kym.

Kym had never beaten a top 30 player before, but caused a huge upset after defeating world number four Shelton 6-3, 6(4)-7, 7-6(1), in a result that has caused an unwanted feat for the American that has not happened for two years.

Shelton reached his first Grand Slam final at the US Open last month, where he lost to Alexander Zverev, and has enjoyed the best season of his career in 2026 after winning four more titles, including defending his Canadian Open title.

Despite this, since reaching the US Open final, Shelton has struggled for form, winning just two of his six matches. This includes Shelton losing both of his matches in USA’s defeat to Czechia in the Davis Cup, as well as suffering early exits at both the Shanghai Masters and the Swiss Indoors.

Shelton has suffered some surprise losses during this time, but to no player ranked outside the top 60. This has now changed after Shelton lost to world number 222 Kym in Basel, which is his lowest-ranked defeat in over two years.

The last time Shelton lost to a player lower ranked than Kym was on the grass at the Mallorca Championships in 2024, where he was beaten by British player Paul Jubb. This is the last match Jubb has won on the ATP Tour, with the Briton now the world number 389.

Shelton is struggling at the end of what has been a very successful 2026 season for him, but he still has two more tournaments to play this year.

The first of those is at the Paris Masters, where Shelton has played three times before. Shelton suffered early losses in his first two appearances at the ATP 1000 tournament in the French capital, but last year made more of a breakthrough after beating Flavio Cobolli and Andrey Rublev en route to the quarter-finals, where he was beaten by eventual champion Jannik Sinner.

Shelton will then conclude his 2026 season at the ATP Finals, where he has qualified for a second consecutive year. Shelton will be hoping to perform a lot better in Turin than he did last year, having lost all three of his round-robin matches in 2025.

As well as bidding to win the title at his two final events in 2026, Shelton also has an opportunity to improve his career-high ranking.

Shelton is currently at his best-ever ranking of world number four, but he still has the chance to surpass Carlos Alcaraz as the world number three before the end of this year.