Marton Fucsovics beats world No.5 Lorenzo Musetti at Indian Wells, Ben Shelton survives | ATP Tour
match report
Fucovic beats world number five Musetti at Indian Wells, Shelton survives injury
Hungarian earns second career top-five win
March 6, 2026
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Marton Fucsovich reaches the third round at Indian Wells for the second time (file photo).
Sam Jacott
Marton Fucsovics earned his second top-five win and first in nearly six years by defeating world No. 5 Lorenzo Musetti 7-5, 6-1 at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells on Friday.
Musetti was competing for the first time since he was forced to withdraw with a psoas muscle injury while leading two sets in the Australian Open quarterfinals against Novak Djokovic. The 24-year-old committed 26 unforced errors on his return to the California Tour and showed signs of rust against Fucovic, who reached the third round at Indian Wells for the second time.
The Hungarian played a high-intensity game and took advantage of the Italian’s mistakes to improve to 4-35 against top-10 opponents, according to the Infosys ATP Win-Loss Index. Fucovich’s previous top-five victory came against Daniil Medvedev at the 2020 French Open, his first top-10 victory on hard courts.
Fucovic, ranked 56th in the PIF ATP Rankings, will advance following the retirement of Croatian qualifier Dino Przymic and will next face Arthur Fels. Fiers, who returned to the tour last month from a back injury, led 6-2, 3-2.
Elsewhere, eighth seed Ben Shelton looked for a long time to be an early exit from the ATP Masters 1000 event, along with fifth seed Lorenzo Musetti. However, the 23-year-old American fought back and defeated Reilly Opelka 6-7(3), 7-6(4), 6-3.
Shelton trailed 4/5 in the second set tiebreaker and was just two points away from defeat. However, Opelka hesitated at the critical moment and lost two points in the serve game, giving Shelton a glimmer of hope. Then, at 5-3 in the third set, the southpaw stumbled while serving and slipped on a volley. Still, Shelton quickly recovered, regained his composure, and ultimately sealed the victory after 2 hours and 13 minutes.
The top-10 star, who reached the quarterfinals at Indian Wells last year, will next face Learner Tien. The reigning Next Generation ATP Finals champion leads Shelton 1-0 in the Lexus ATP head-to-head series.
