Tennis-Norrie returns to favourite Wimbledon stage to stun Tiafoe
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's Cameron Norrie returned to his favourite patch of Wimbledon turf to stun American 12th seed Frances Tiafoe and reach the third round with a 4-6 6-4 6-3 7-5 win on Wednesday.
Court One might lack the aura of the All England Club's historic Centre Court, but Norrie loves it, having won three matches there during his semi-final run in 2022.
Norrie's ranking has slipped to 61 and he lost in the first round of both his warm-up events on grass, but after an excursion on Court 18 on Monday he was back on the sleek 12,345 arena for his clash with Tiafoe.
Initially it was the free-hitting Tiafoe who looked right at home, taking a tight opening set with a single break of serve.
But everything changed at the end of the second.
Norrie found himself in big trouble when serving at 4-4, going down 0-40. But he reeled off five points in a row and broke in the next game with a superb backhand winner to snatch the set.
Left-hander Norrie, who had never previously beaten a top-20 player at Wimbledon, bristled with energy in the third set, dictating the points as Tiafoe began to fade.
Norrie failed to capitalise on one break of serve as he allowed Tiafoe to reply, but another break proved decisive as he moved to within one set of victory.
Tiafoe left the court for seven minutes for a bathroom break before the start of the fourth set but Norrie refused to be put off his stride and broke serve for a 4-3 lead.
Again Tiafoe managed to respond, but Norrie was relentless as he again pounced on the American's serve before completing victory to reach the Wimbledon third round for the fourth time.
Tiafoe's exit means 14 of the 32 men's seeds are out of the tournament less than halfway through the first week.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Ed Osmond)
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