Stunning comeback sees Norrie through

BRITISH NO 3 Cameron Norrie produced the first upset of this year’s US Open by coming from two sets down to stun ninth seed Diego Schwartzman.

Norrie was staring down the barrel of a straight- sets defeat until the wheels came off for Argentinian Schwartzman in the third.

Having hauled himself level, a thrilling, fluctuating fifth set eventually went to Norrie, ranked 76 in the world, to seal a memorable 3- 6 4- 6 6- 2 6- 1 7- 5 victory in just under four hours.

In a match featuring 58 break points – a US Open record – Norrie’s serve let him down in the first set as he was broken three times by the world No 13.

Norrie clawed back an early break, gift wrapped with a double fault, in the second, but at the end of a punishing set all he had to show for his efforts was a 2- 0 deficit and a warning from the umpire for smashing a ball into orbit.

However, with Schwartzman seemingly annoyed at Norrie avoiding another code violation and then briefly rattled by a time violation, the Briton took advantage.

He raced through the third and fourth sets, hitting just 13 unforced errors compared to 34 over the previous two.

The South American served for the match at 5- 4 but clearly had little left in the tank and Norrie was again able to claw himself level before taking the next two games to wrap up victory.

Norrie said: “I’m pretty tired. The tennis level from me wasn’t that great but I had a pretty good attitude and was fortunate to sneak through. It was a tough one.

“The British guys were watching and Schwartzman was getting a little bit upset at them cheering me.

“It was good to get over the line.”