Ben Shelton won a three-set battle against Andrey Rublev at the 2024 Swiss Indoors in Basel despite a bizarre start to the match.
While the American player can't mathematically qualify for the ATP Finals anymore, he still has a chance of making it to the tournament. Novak Djokovic's participation is highly doubtful, and if he ends in the Top 8 and withdraws from the year-end tournament, even the ninth player, so normally the first alternate, would make it to the event. That's the spot that Shelton can still fight for.
On the other hand, Rublev is much closer to the ATP Finals qualification, as he's currently ranked eighth in the 2024 ATP Race, so he also needed points from the ATP 500 tournament in Basel.
Therefore, this quarter-final match was important for both, and both played like it. Well, when they got a chance to play. The start of the match was very bizarre, as the play was suspended because of some sort of fog or a cloud of smoke that appeared in the St. Jakobshalle in Basel, Switzerland.
After Shelton hilariously tried to help with getting rid of the fog, the play could continue, and both players brought their best to this match. Rublev was the first player to have break points, as he had three in the fifth game in the opening set.
However, the Russian player couldn't use his chances, and it later came back to haunt him. It looked like the first set would have to be decided in a tie-break, but one game point in the twelfth, and possibly last regular game of the first set, wasn't enough for Rublev.
He lost the last three points of the first set, and Shelton was able to steal all of the momentum, winning the first set of the match 7-5.
Rublev had three break points again in the second set of the match. He had the first one in the opening game and two more in the third game of the second set, but once again, he couldn't use any of his chances.
Once again, it could have been a painful set for the Russian player, as it had to be decided in a tie-break, and anything could happen in it. But this time, he was the better player, winning it 7-3 and sending the match into the decider.
The third set was the only one in which Rublev didn't have any break points. However, he didn't have to be bothered by that, as his serve was on fire during the final set of the match.
He won his first four service games to love, winning 16 consecutive points on his serve. Adding also his streak from the end of the second set, by the time the ninth game of the third set arrived, Rublev had won 33 consecutive points on his serve.
That's an insane streak that even the likes of John Isner haven't had many times in their careers. However, every streak comes to an end, and so did Rublev's, and in a very disappointing way.
He lost his serve in the ninth game of the third set, and with late heroics, Shelton was able to break his opponent's serve and win the match 7-5, 6-7(3), 6-4 to reach the semi-finals of the 2024 Swiss Indoors.