Cameron Norrie extended the upset chaos at the ATP Montreal Masters on Thursday, saving a match point in defeating Alex de Minaur 5-7, 7-6 (5), 6-1.<\/p>\n
The battling British winner trailed a set and a double break<\/a> against the Australian third seed, who folded in the final set of an epic lasting for almost three hours.<\/p>\n De Minaur<\/a>, who had been the highest remaining seed in a depleted draw, could have closed it out in straight sets with a match point chance in the eighth game of the second set.<\/p>\n The tournament had already seen an early exit from top seed Alexander Zverev<\/a>, an injury pullout from Canadian second seed Felix Auger-Aliassime<\/a> and a loss by fourth seed Daniil Medvedev<\/a>.<\/p>\n The US Open tuneup hardcourt event had already been hit by the absences of world number one Jannik Sinner<\/a> and 24-time Grand Slam singles champion Novak Djokovic<\/a>.<\/p>\n The result leaves fifth-seeded holder Ben Shelton<\/a> as the new man to beat going into the fourth round.<\/p>\n Norrie<\/a> said he had to win a struggle.<\/p>\n “It was a great match to win and test my level,” said the 2021 Masters champion at Indian Wells. “I can take so much confidence from this one.<\/p>\n “The level was so high in the first set. He came out firing and I had to match it. Alex stayed tough and stole the first set but took his foot off the gas just slightly in the second.<\/p>\n “I just battled point for point and managed to come out 6-1 in the third set. I was fortunate and I’ll take (the win).”<\/p>\n De Minaur, losing finalist in Canada three years ago to Sinner, seized a 4-1 first-set lead to take the opener, winning six of seven games.<\/p>\n Norrie began turning the tide in the second set, levelling with a winning tiebreaker before running away with it in the third. He earned his match point 62 minutes after de Minaur blew his second-set winning chance.<\/p>\n “I was in a good position,” de Minaur said. “It’s tennis. As we’ve seen, anything can happen. It’s not the easiest of conditions out here.<\/p>\n “I gave myself chances early in the third set, and then I just played some bad points in a row and then got behind.<\/p>\n “It all just went very quickly.”<\/p>\n Norrie will next play Arthur Fils<\/a> after the Frenchman defeated Mariano Navone<\/a> 6-3, 6-2<\/a>, staking his claim for a comeback effort after missing months of play from a year ago and extending to February.<\/p>\n The 44th-ranked Argentine Navone lost his 22nd career match against a top-30 opponent. Fils advanced on his second match point, winning as he overcame 30 unforced errors with a solid serving performance which included four aces and four breaks of the Navone serve.<\/p>\n “I couldn’t put in a serve during warm-up,” the 24th-ranked winner said. “But I found my rhythm during the match and hit some good spots.”<\/p>\n ‘I enjoy being back’<\/p>\n With no top five players left in the depleted draw, the path is opening for the survivors in French-speaking Canada.<\/p>\n “I try to do my best every day,” Fils said. “It has been a tough time for me, I was injured a lot. But I enjoy being back on the big stage – it means a lot. Still, no pressure.”<\/p>\n Fils will play a Masters 1000 round of 16 for the fourth time this season after winning his 25th match of 2026.<\/p>\n Luciano Darderi<\/a> defeated China’s Shang Juncheng<\/a> in a 4-6, 6-1, 6-4<\/a> comeback effort, his 30th victory of the season.<\/p>\n The Italian plays for the quarter-finals as he takes on Nuno Borges<\/a> after the Portuguese defeated German Yannick Hanfmann<\/a> 6-4, 6-2<\/a>.<\/p>\n Jiri Lehecka<\/a>, at eighth the highest seed remaining after Shelton, stayed alive with a 6-3, 6-4<\/a> win over Belgian Alexander Blockx<\/a>.<\/p>\n He will next face Spanish teen Rafael Jodar<\/a>, the Washington runner-up who beat 13th seed Lorenzo Musetti<\/a> 6-4, 6-3.<\/a><\/p>\n “I did a great job on returns and generally played very solid,” Jodar said. “I’m super happy with the performance.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cameron Norrie extended the upset chaos at the ATP Montreal Masters on Thursday, saving a match point in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":730208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-730207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730207","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=730207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/730208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}