Norrie shows his ruthless streak to ease into last 16
Cameron Norrie ended a five-year wait for a British man in the fourth round of Wimbledon as he swept past Steve Johnson for the loss of just five games. As John Mcenroe put it: “It doesn’t get any easier than that.”
Norrie also became the second Briton of the day to smash a personal glass ceiling, emulating Heather Watson by reaching the last 16 of a major for the first time. But the broader statistic was the more remarkable, demonstrating how large a talent gap Andy Murray left when his hip blew up in the 2017 quarter-final against Sam Querrey.
Wimbledon is twice the event when there are Britons in the second week. And this year the tournament needed that injection of nationalism even more than usual, with Roger Federer absent through injury and multiple contenders eliminated by either Covid or the ramifications of war in Ukraine.
Norrie and Watson have gone to a stage where only Emma Raducanu reached last year, thus emulating the 2017 joint efforts of Murray and Johanna Konta.
Were either Katie Boulter or Liam Broady to join them today, then we would be looking at a genuinely rare feat of three home players in the last 16, not matched since Virginia Wade, Debbie Jevans and Mark Cox all went that far in 1979. Were both Boulter and Broady to win, that would make it the best return since the strike year of 1973, when virtually no international players travelled to Wimbledon because of an industrial dispute involving Yugoslavia’s Niki Pilic.
Admittedly, this was an ideal match-up for Norrie, against a characteristic type of American player who deploys a massive serve and forehand yet has no backhand to speak of.
For a left-hander such as Norrie, Johnson is exactly the sort of opponent you dream of. As a sort of cutprice Rafael Nadal, Norrie likes to
whip heavy top-spin forehands into his opponent’s weaker flank, just as his role model made a name from bombarding the Federer backhand.
There was no escape for Johnson from this frustrating pattern of play. As he chipped backhand after backhand, he must have felt like a lead guitarist who was being asked to play drums, despite the fact that he had barely picked up a pair of sticks in his life. His primary skills were going unrewarded.
Looking at the way Norrie was striking the ball, the question may not be “How did he finally reach the second week of a major?” but “Why did it take him so long?”
We are talking the ninth seed here – yet before this tournament Norrie’s record at the grand slams was a very moderate 14 wins and 18 defeats. Neither can we easily attribute his multiple disappointments to nervousness on the big occasion, because he won Indian Wells – the tournament often described as “the fifth major” – only last October.
The point, perhaps, is that we are witnessing Norrie’s personal growth.
There was perhaps a scintilla of imposter syndrome at the back of his mind throughout the first five years of his professional career, stemming from the fact that he went down the American college route in his late teens rather than heading straight out onto the tour.
He has since acknowledged that he needed time to grow up as a person,
and he certainly sounded confident yesterday as he took the applause on Centre Court. When Rishi Persad, the on-court interviewer, asked him what lay behind his rapid climb up the rankings since last year’s Wimbledon – which carried him from No34 to No12 – one wag in the crowd earned a laugh by shouting out “Weetabix!”
Once the chuckles had died down, Norrie offered a more grounded diagnosis. “It feels really good to reach the second week of a slam, especially with all my friends and family watching me, so definitely good timing,” he said. His Welsh mother and Scottish father had made the long trip over from New Zealand, the country of his birth, and were watching him play on Centre Court for the first time.
“I’m really enjoying playing at this level, enjoying the process of it all, and enjoying improving. It’s been a lot of fun with my coach Facu [Facundo Lugones, an old friend from Texas Christian University]. We have all got the same goals and we’re all pushing each other hard.”
Asked if he was ready for his next match against another American, Tommy Paul, Norrie replied: “I’m as ready as I can be. I’m training as hard as I can.
“It’s been a tricky grass season, but I’ve peaked at the right time and I’m definitely moving better and feeling a lot better on the court. So I’ll take that and I’m as ready as I can be.”