Cameron Norrie talks up Jack Draper after winning battle of Britain in Miami
Cameron Norrie touted Jack Draper as a top-10 player of the future after withstanding a strong challenge from his young British compatriot to reach the third round of the Miami Open.
Draper, 20, has won three titles on the second-tier Challenger Tour this season to leap into the top 150 and he made it 11 victories in a row against veteran Gilles Simon in round one to claim a first Masters tournament victory. That set up an intriguing clash with British No 1 Norrie, who is on course to break into the top 10 for the first time after this tournament, and the 26-year-old battled to a 7-6 (5), 6-4 victory.
Speaking to Amazon Primer Video, Norrie said of Draper: “I’m excited to see how he’s going to do in the future. I think if he can play week in, week out he’s going to have a very, very good career and I’m sure he can get easily top 10 for me.”
Draper, who has made qualifying for the main draw of Wimbledon on ranking this summer a goal, fought back from 5-2 down to force a tie-break in the opening set, mixing power off his serve and groundstrokes with finesse at the net. Norrie kept his nerve to edge it and a break in the seventh game of the second set proved enough to send him through to a clash with either John Isner or Hugo Gaston.
Norrie and Draper have practised together a lot, and Norrie said: “It’s not easy coming in against Jack. He’s such a big talent and hits the ball big on both sides. The court surprised me a little bit, it was very slow out here. I managed to play the bigger points a little bit better than he did and I think that was the difference in the end.”
Andy Murray will face Daniil Medvedev in the second round of the Miami Open after advancing past Federico Delbonis in straight sets on Thursday. The Scot battled to take the opening set in a tie-breaker before running away with the second in a 7-6 (4), 6-1 victory.
Neither player was able to gain an early advantage in a first set that did not feature a single break point. The tie-breaker then carried on in a similar vein until Murray was able to take a 6-4 advantage on an unforced error from Delbonis, which the Argentinian followed up with a double fault. The three-time grand slam champion went up an immediate break in the second and never looked like losing from there and his win set up a meeting with the Australian Open runner-up.
Speaking after the match, Murray said he was looking forward to the clash with Medvedev. “Obviously a tough match,” he said. “He’s played extremely well on the hard courts the last few seasons. He deserves to be right up there at the top of the game.
“It’ll be a big challenge for me; it’ll be a great test. I’ve got a big training block after this tournament, and it’ll be a really good test, for where my game’s at and things I need to work on as well, against him. So I’m looking forward to that.”