Until this year’s Wimbledon, six short weeks ago, Cameron Norrie was still struggling to make his first appearance in the second week of a grand slam. Sometimes he faced brutal third-round encounters against Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, while other times genuine opportunities passed him by.
These days, he makes it look easy. On Saturday afternoon, Norrie followed up his breakthrough in SW19 by calmly making his way into the fourth round of the US Open for the first time.
As Norrie’s composure contrasted sharply with Holger Rune’s temper, Norrie clinched a 7-5, 6-4, 6-1 win over the 28th seed to advance. After three rounds, Norrie has still not dropped a set. “My goal today was to get to two hours and then we start the match from there. Literally when it hit two hours I broke to go 2-1 up in the third set, pointed to Facu [Lugones, his coach] and I was like: ‘All right, now the match starts.’ He seemed to die a little bit,” said Norrie, who won in two hours, 12 minutes.
As the match fell away from him, the 19-year-old Rune became fixated by Norrie. At 5-4 to Norrie in set two, he continually complained to the umpire that Norrie was running down the 25-second serve clock by catching his ball toss when serving and he suggested that it was deliberately. “He does it every time and then I have to stop. Every time,” he said.
Afterwards, Rune struck a less accusatory tone, conceding that he did not think it was deliberate. “I have played him before and he has done the same every match. Maybe it is a sign of a tight game and he is nervous,” he said. “There was not much wind today – you can’t blame it on that. It is how he does. He serves well and plays well so all credit to him.”
Norrie remained composed through Rune’s protests, holding serve for the second set through a long deuce game and he won seven of the last eight games. He later shrugged off Rune’s complaints, stating that he was not catching his toss on purpose. “I stayed a lot calmer than he did throughout a lot of big moments in the match,” he said.
Norrie heads into the fourth round with a real opportunity of another deep grand slam run. He has established himself as a serial winner, his 44 wins this year placing him third for match wins on the ATP this year. He will face an even greater challenge in Monday’s fourth round against Andrey Rublev, the ninth seed, who outlasted Denis Shapovalov 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (3), 4-6, 7-6 (7).
After a record four British men reached the third round of the US Open, Norrie is the only player to advance to the fourth round. Marin Cilic, the 15th seed, edged out 20th seed Dan Evans 7-6 (11), 6-7 (3), 6-2, 7-5 in three hours and 59 minutes.
Evans had ample chances in an extremely tight 82 minute opening set, leading 6-4 in the tiebreak and holding three set points before Cilic took the tiebreak. Although Evans levelled the match at one set all, the 2014 US Open champion overpowered Evans over four tough sets to reach the fourth round.
