Fifth seed Ben Shelton edged past Arthur Fils 6-3 7-6 (9-7) in a hard-fought semifinal match after 78 minutes at the Swiss Indoors in Basel.
Shelton did not face a break point and won 88% of his first serve points.
Shelton played against Fils met for the second time in the space of one month. Las September Fils beat Shelton in the tie-break of the third-set in the quarter final of the Tokyo ATP 500 tournament. They are good friends off the court and played together in the doubles tournament in Basel.
Shelton ended Fils’ 13 match winning streak at ATP 500 tournaments. The Frenchman won two titles in this category in Hamburg and Tokyo.
Shelton converted his second break point in the eighth game and served out on his first point in the ninth game.
Both players held on serve without any break points en route to the tie-break. Fils raced out to a 5-0 lead with two mini-breaks and was on the verge of pushing the match to the third set. Shelton pulled one of the two mini-breaks to close in to 3-5. Fils earned five set points in the tie-break, three at 6-3 and another two at 7-6 and 9-8 but Shelton clawed his way back and won the final three points to close out the 11-minute tie-break 11-9.
Shelton has reached the third ATP final of his career after winning two titles in Tokyo in 2023 and Houston in 2024. The US player has become the first US player to reach the final in Basel since 1998, four years he was born. Agassi lost the final to Tim Henman in that edition.
“I think it’s always difficult to play against friends, but maybe it was a little bit easier for me because he beat me in Tokyo and I wanted revenge”, said Ben Shelton.
Shelton will face a final against Frenchman Giovanni Mpetchi Perricard, who beat 2022 Basel finalist Holger Rune 7-6 (8-6) 6-4 to reach the biggest final of his career. For the first time an ATP Tour event featured four players born in the 2000s. It was the second time that four players younger than 23 reached the semifinals in the same ATP tournament.
Mpetchi Perricard never faced a break point and won 87% of his first serve points. Neither player earned a single break point in the first set setting up a tie-break where the first 13 point went to the server. Mpetshi Perricard saved a set point at 5-6 before clinching the tie-break with his first mini-break. The Frenchman earned an early break at the stat of the second set and won his next five service games to clinch the win. The French player won four of his five tie-breaks this week.
“I think a really exciting thing about this tournament is that in the semifinals we have 22-year-old guys or younger. I think that shows how strong our next gen is. I am the oldest of the four, so that’s kind of crazy to think about”.
