Norrie, Dimitrov advance to semis at Indian Wells
INDIAN WELLS — Cameron Norrie routed 11thseeded Diego Schwartzman 6-0, 6-2 on Thursday to reach the semifinals of the BNP Paribas Open and extend the best season of his career.
Norrie needed just 73 minutes to dismantle Schwartzman, who finally held serve to open the second set, drawing cheers from the small crowd at Indian Wells Tennis Garden, where attendance has been capped at well below capacity because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“For my biggest match of my career to play like I did and execute like I did was the biggest thing that I’m most happy with,” Norrie said.
Schwartzman earned his only break of the match to tie it 2-all in the second. Norrie ran off the final four games to move into a semifinal against 23rd-seeded
Grigor Dimitrov, who beat No. 8 Hubert Hurkacz 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (2).
No. 12 seed Ons Jabeur advanced to the semifinals with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Anett Kontaveit that will move the 27-year-old Tunisian into the world’s top 10 for the first time next week.
“Feels amazing,” Jabeur said. “We’ve been working hard for years. The end of last season I said I wanted to be in top 10. It means a lot, but we’re not going to stop here and go further hopefully.”
Angelique Kerber, the 2019 runner-up and highest remaining seed at No. 10, lost to 21st-seeded Paula Badosa 6-4, 7-5.
Badosa plays Jabeur in the semifinals today. The other semi pits Victoria Azarenka against Jelena Ostapenko.
In quarterfinal matchups today, No. 2 Stefanos Tsitsipas plays Nikoloz Basilashvili and No. 3 Alexander Zverev faces Taylor Fritz.