Cameron Norrie could not be any further from Great Britain at the Australian Open, but he still received support worthy of being “top three” in his career during his second-round match.<\/p>\n
The British number two came through his meeting with the United States’ Emilio Nava in four sets, taking a 6-1 7-6 (7-3) 4-6 7-6 (7-5) victory.<\/p>\n
He is officially the last British singles player standing – as has been the case in the past three Grand Slams – after Emma Raducanu lost to Austria’s Anastasia Potapova and Arthur Fery was outclassed by Argentina’s Tomas Martin Etcheverry on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The Brits always attract fans at Melbourne Park, but the crowd created a particularly “amazing atmosphere” for the 26th seed throughout his three hours and 20 minutes on court.<\/p>\n
But where did it rank in Norrie’s career?<\/p>\n
“I would say the best atmosphere at the Australian Open,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The big question is: where’s the after-party? We’ve got to keep going, straight to the Crown [casino and entertainment resort in Melbourne].”<\/p>\n
Norrie arrived on court shortly after 17:30 local time, rallying to take the first two sets in just over an hour and a half before Nava staged a partial comeback by taking the third set.<\/p>\n
Then came the inconveniently timed rain, which suspended play for almost an hour and ground the fourth set to a halt in a fourth-set tie-break – with Norrie three points from victory.<\/p>\n
“I was actually laughing to myself and felt so relaxed when I came out afterwards,” said Norrie.<\/p>\n
“It was quite tough for the fans. There was a lot of atmosphere building and it was completely packed. It was a shame the match couldn’t have finished there with all the atmosphere.”<\/p>\n
The world number 27 explained that it felt like the crowd were “on top of the court” at times, adding: “I could look anywhere and someone was getting fired up for me.”<\/p>\n
His post-match on-court interview was also interrupted by fans chanting his name, so it is fair to say he has captured the hearts of the locals.<\/p>\n
Norrie will next face German third seed Alexander Zverev, who got past Frenchman Alexandre Muller in four sets and has won their previous six meetings – including a deciding-set tie-break in Melbourne two years ago.<\/p>\n
“I’m excited to have another crack at him.<\/p>\n
“I’m going to remember that, if I’m in the fifth-set tie-break again, I’ll try to be more aggressive and be the one going for it, maybe not to bail out on a dropshot in the tiebreak. We’ll see.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cameron Norrie could not be any further from Great Britain at the Australian Open, but he still received…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-421263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}