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 had almost no chance in 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. Yesterday afternoon, Norrie followed up his breakthrough Wimbledon semi-final 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] 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.
Norrie established an early lead in the first set, but while serving for the set at 5-4, nerves struck. Down by break point, Norrie shanked an overhead into the back fence. It could have been a turning point, but Norrie instantly erased it from his mind, breaking serve in the subsequent game and taking the set.
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 deliberately running down the shot clock when serving. “He does it every time and then I have to stop. Every time,” he said.
Norrie remained composed through Rune’s protests, holding serve for the second set through a long deuce game. After Rune’s complaints in that game, Norrie won seven of the last eight games.
“I stayed a lot calmer than he did throughout a lot of big moments in the match,” he said. “I managed to stay tough in the first set and again when I was serving for the second set.”
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 on Monday against either the 19th seed Denis Shapovalov or Andrey Rublev, the ninth, for a place in the quarter-finals.