Basel: Rune and Altmaier go three sets, Vacherot and Borges through

The Swiss Indoors in Basel, an ATP 500 on indoor hard courts that began on Monday 26 October, already has its first verdicts. Nuno Borges, Valentin Vacherot, Daniel Altmaier and Holger Rune have won their opening matches and reach the round of 16 after anything but comfortable afternoons. According to the site's data, the tournament has so far produced 4 matches, 5 tie-breaks and 2 deciding sets: a balanced start, before the heavyweights of the draw step in.

The longest match was Altmaier's. The German beat Juan Manuel Cerundolo 6-7(5) 7-6(4) 6-4, 36 games in total, the match with the most games in the tournament so far. After losing the first set in a tie-break, Altmaier turned the match around by winning the second the same way and then closing it out in the final set. With the step into the round of 16 his live ranking points rise from 924 to 974.

Altmaier is world No. 58 and his career-best ranking, according to the site's history, is No. 57, reached on 24 August 2026. He is therefore very close to his peak. This season he has already beaten Rune in the first round of the Shanghai Masters 1000, 1-6 7-6(5) 6-4: on that occasion too he lost the first set heavily before coming back. In Basel the opponent was different, but the script was similar.

Rune also had to fight. The Dane beat Quentin Halys 6-4 6-7(2) 7-6(5): he won the first set, lost the second in a tie-break and closed the match with another tie-break in the third, winning it 7-5. Rune has an important past in Basel: the roll of honour lists him as the 2022 runner-up, beaten by Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-3 7-5.

Vacherot's path was more straightforward. He beat Mariano Navone 6-3 7-6(4) in two sets, keeping his cool in the second-set tie-break. Vacherot is No. 31 in the ATP ranking with 1,530 points, and reaching the round of 16 is worth 50 points: his live total rises to 1,580. If he won the title he would climb to 1,980. His career-best ranking is No. 14, reached on 5 October 2026.

Vacherot's recent season has had closely spaced ups and downs. In Tokyo he reached the semifinal by beating Stefanos Tsitsipas 4-6 7-6(5) 6-4 and Arthur Fils 7-5 4-6 6-4, before giving way to Jiri Lehecka 6-4 6-2. Then in Shanghai he went out in the third round against Tommy Paul, 6-4 6-2, and in Lyon in the round of 16 against Luca Van Assche, who won 2-6 6-4 6-4. Basel is a chance to rediscover consistency on indoor hard courts.

Borges had the most convincing win of the group: 6-3 6-1 over Mika Brunold. The Portuguese is No. 49 with 1,050 points and moves to 1,100 in the live ranking; the title would be worth 500 and take him to 1,500. Over his last ten matches he has won 7 and lost 3. In Beijing he lost in the third round to Novak Djokovic, 6-3 7-6(2).

The tournament carries a lot of points to defend. Joao Fonseca, who won the 2025 title by beating Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 6-3 6-4 in the final, has 500 points expiring, while Davidovich Fokina has 330 for the final. Jaume Antoni Munar Clar and Ugo Humbert have 200 points for the semifinal, and 100 apiece expire for Casper Ruud, Denis Shapovalov, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Reilly Opelka, all quarterfinalists in 2025.

The points structure is that of a 500: the title is worth 500, the final 330, the semifinal 200, the quarterfinal 100, the round of 16 50, while the first round awards no points. For anyone chasing a higher ranking, every match won in Switzerland therefore carries real weight. Djokovic, for example, has 250 points to defend over the next six weeks, while Borges and Altmaier have 50 each.

The roll of honour tells of a tournament often decided by small margins. In 2024 Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard won, beating Ben Shelton 6-4 7-6(4) in the final. In 2023 and 2022 the title went to Auger-Aliassime, first over Hubert Hurkacz in two tie-breaks (7-6(3) 7-6(5)) and then over Rune. In 2025 Fonseca won the final 6-3 6-4.

Tuesday 27 October's schedule is already rich. Hurkacz plays Zizou Bergs, Jerome Kym plays Arthur Rinderknech, Alejandro Tabilo plays Rafael Jodar, Alex Michelsen plays Botic Van De Zandschulp, Mpetshi Perricard plays Fils, Shelton plays Aleksandar Kovacevic and Stan Wawrinka plays Lehecka. The meeting of Mpetshi Perricard and Fils pits the 2024 champion against one of the most prominent players on tour.

Wednesday 28 October brings the heaviest names. Djokovic, world No. 12 with 3,090 points, opens against Humbert. The Serb comes off winning the China Open in Beijing, where in the final Alex De Minaur retired after losing the first set 7-6(3) and trailing 0-1 in the second. In Shanghai, at the following Masters 1000, Djokovic lost in the second round to Hurkacz, 6-4 6-3.

The same day Yannick Hanfmann plays Jan-Lennard Struff, Taylor Fritz plays Rinky Hijikata and Remy Bertola plays Denis Shapovalov. Fritz is No. 13, 95 points behind Djokovic, a detail that makes the top of the ranking particularly interesting at this stage of the season.

One result remains to be told: the Monday evening match between Ruud and Dominic Stricker, which the site does not yet report. Ruud has 100 points to defend for the quarterfinal he reached in 2025, and we will come back to it as soon as the result appears on the tournament pages.

The picture for now is this: Borges, No. 49, and Altmaier, No. 58, have won their first matches, Vacherot is moving up in the live ranking, and Rune got past Halys in a third-set tie-break. The big names come in now, over two days, with a long week still ahead. The first four matches, with their tie-breaks and deciding sets, have already shown that in Basel no point is a gift.

What happens next? The round of 16 will be played over the coming days, with the quarterfinals to follow. For Borges, Vacherot, Altmaier and Rune the task is simple to write and hard to carry out: confirm their form against higher-level opponents. We will keep following the tournament with live rankings and result updates.