27 aces and a first win at the ninth attempt: Struff knocks Djokovic out in Basel
Jan-Lennard Struff beat Novak Djokovic 6-7, 7-5, 7-6 in Basel – his first win over the Serb after eight defeats. It is a major blow to Djokovic's hopes of reaching the ATP Finals in Turin.
Archive image · Photo: Carine06 from UK / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped and resized)
Jan-Lennard Struff pulled off the upset of the week in Basel. The 36-year-old German beat fourth seed Novak Djokovic 6-7(4), 7-5, 7-6(5) in 2 hours and 36 minutes in the Swiss Indoors round of 16. According to the ATP, Struff hit 27 aces – the last on match point – and saved all six break points he faced. It was his first win in nine meetings with the Serb, who had beaten him eight times, most recently at the 2025 US Open.
"I knew I needed to go for it. There was only one way to play it," Struff said, according to the ATP. After losing the first-set tie-break, he took the second set with a break for 7-5 and held his nerve in the deciding tie-break. According to Tennis Majors, it was his fourth Top 20 win of the year. In the quarter-finals Struff, who reached the Brussels final last weekend, meets Portugal's Nuno Borges.
For Djokovic, qualifying for the ATP Finals now looks very difficult. According to the ATP, he trails Rafael Jódar, who holds the last qualifying spot in the Race to Turin, by 319 points, with only the Paris Masters left before the finale. Qualifying would have given the Serb the outright record of 19 appearances; he currently shares the record of 18 with Roger Federer.