Valentin Vacherot beat Rafael Jodar 7-6(4), 2-6, 7-6(5) in round two of the Swiss Indoors Basel on Thursday afternoon. Vacherot trailed by a mini-break at 5-4 in the deciding-set tiebreaker but won the next two points on Jodar’s serve and then closed it out at 6-5 to get across the finish line after two hours and 30 minutes.
The Monegasque may have dished out a big assist to some of the Nitto ATP Finals contenders, too. That’s because Jodar currently occupies the final qualifying spot in the race to Turin (the 20-year-old is officially ninth, but that is good for No. 8 since Jannik Sinner will not be participating).
Jodar owns at least a 229-point lead over Alex de Minaur, Novak Djokovic, Taylor Fritz, and Tommy Paul. However, the Spaniard’s four closest competitors are all still alive this week in either Basel or Valencia. Fritz beat Denis Shapovalov on Thursday to reach the Basel quarterfinals, while De Minaur and Paul (vs. Arthur Fils) will compete in the Vienna quarters on Friday.
Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz, and Ben Shelton are the only players who have clinched spots in the year-end championship. In addition to Jodar, the others who are currently in position are Daniil Medvedev, Flavio Cobolli, Arthur Fils, and Frances Tiafoe. Both Medvedev (Vienna) and Fils (Basel) boosted their hopes with three-set victories on Thursday.
nice one, VV
Yes. And big congratulations to local 23yo wildcard Jerome Kym for taking out the top seed Ben Shelton in front of his home crowd after mostly competing at Challenger level. His previous best result in 2026 was taking Tsitsipas to three sets in Gstaad, also aided by the home crowd — narrowly losing in the deciding set tiebreak.
He also beat Kokkinakis in the Dublin Challenger after being bagelled first set and beat Landaluce 6:4 6:3 in the Lille Challenger in February.
Will say though that both Shelton and Tsitsipas seem to have more susceptibility to losing to “unknowns” and I suspect both have a bit of arrogance that leads them to not taking these guys very seriously, and then they get surprised and flustered.
Not to take anything away from Jerome Kym (AKA Geronimo, according to the ATP bio), who was a top junior and has earned his moment in the sun.🌞