Shelton shelves shoulder injury past to earn Basel win

Ben Shelton stayed in the thick of the chase to the ATP year-ender next month, with the second seed salvaging a tight 6-7 (2), 6-3, 7-6 (7) opening win over Kamil Majchrzak on Tuesday at the Swiss indoors in Basel

The victory in two and three-quarter hours was the first win for the American since August 29 at the US Open as he retired in the third round with a shoulder injury against Adrian Mannarino.

The world No. 6 saved a pair of match points for his Polish opponent and reached the second round at the St Jakobshalle in his own second winning chance, firing a forehand winner down the line.

Shelton finished with 44 winners – including 13 aces – just pipping the 36 winners of his 70th-ranked opponent.

The American finished runner-up here a year ago at the home event for Roger Federer, losing the final to France’s Giovanni Ppetschi Perricard.

Tuesday’s opening win was a close call for Shelton, provisional sixth in the race to the eight-man ATP Finals next month in Turin.

“Honestly, it came down to one shot (his opponent’s forehand long on a match point),” the winner said.”I could have gone either way, we both had this match on our racquets. On a fast court like this, it was a lot of small margins.

“Mentally I had to stay tough, I did a good job of that today. This was my first win since being injured (shoulder) at the Open.

“I’m trying to create some momentum to get myself going here in Switzerland.”

Shelton called victory “huge for me.”

“I had weeks off but did a good job on preparation, I’m happy with how I competed and played. 

“He was serving at a very, very high level and to sustain that is tough. I had to just hope that he would start missing his spots, which he did late in the match.

“I had to try and put the ball back in the court.”

Shelton will bid for the quarter-finals against Spain’s Jaume Munar.