Norrie set the tone when breaking in the opening game of the match before wrapping up the set in 36 minutes.<\/p>\n
But the rest of the clay contest unfolded in dramatically contrasting circumstances.<\/p>\n
Machac steadied the ship in the second and drew level after saving match point in the tie-break.<\/p>\n
The Czech had ample chances to book his spot in the next round but let Norrie off the hook far too many times – taking just one of his 12 break point opportunities.<\/p>\n
Norrie found himself a break down and staring at an early exit as Machac served for the match, but he dug deep to break back and held his nerve in the tie-break.<\/p>\n
Fellow Briton Katie Boulter was unable to build on her first-round straight-set win over Taylor Townsend as she lost 6-4 6-4 against world number five Jessica Pegula.<\/p>\n
Earlier, world number one Jannik Sinner came from a set down to beat France’s Benjamin Bonzi 6-7 (6-8) 6-1 6-4.<\/p>\n
It is Sinner’s 18th successive victory after lifting titles at Indian Wells, the Miami Open and the Monte Carlo Masters.<\/p>\n
The Italian, who has won 27 ATP Tour events, is seeking his first at the Madrid Open and will face Danish qualifier Elmer Moller in round three.<\/p>\n
Russia’s Andrey Rublev, who won the tournament in 2024, fell to a surprise 6-3 6-4 defeat against Czech world number 66 Vit Kopriva.<\/p>\n
Croatian Dino Prizmic also pulled off an upset with a 6-4 6-7 (4-7) 7-6 (7-5) win over American world number world number six Ben Shelton.<\/p>\n
Kazakh Elena Rybakina, ranked second in the world, overcame a difficult start to beat Romania’s Elena Gabriela Ruse 4-6 6-3 7-5.<\/p>\n
World number three Coco Gauff returned from her quarter-final exit at the Stuttgart Open with an emphatic 6-3 6-0 victory against Leolia Jeanjean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Norrie set the tone when breaking in the opening game of the match before wrapping up the set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-549072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}