It’s not Caming home for Norrie
BRIT BATTLES TO END BUT HAS TO BOW TO FEDERER
IN THE end, fitness and fighting spirit were not enough, against sheer class.
Cameron Norrie tried so hard to run Roger Federer off Centre Court with his phenomenal fitness and pace – and did produce one of the performances of his career.
But Roger Federer, even with his 40th birthday fast approaching in August, and even after two knee operations and a shaky start to this Wimbledon, is still in another league.
And the great Swiss legend’s 6-4 6-4 5-7 6-4 win on Centre Court proved that he is not finished just yet. British No.2 Norrie has had a superb year, with 31 wins and a rise in his ranking to 34. Against eighttime champion Federer he fought to the very end and took a set off the 20 times Grand Slam winner. But class tells.
Federer (below) has not been looking his best this tournament – he was struggling in the first round until opponent Adrian Mannarino pulled out with injury – but ominously, he looks to be gradually finding his rhythm.
He said: “That win meant a lot. I played a good match but credit to Cam for pushing me. It’s a reference point. If I can beat somebody of Cam’s level, it’s not just a guy that can play good on the day. He’s a good player. “I had a really excellent attitude, it was one of the first times I felt at peace out there, a sort of tranquility”. Norrie made an awful start, with three double faults in his very first service game, but he recovered well, as expected from a man who ran 10k every day during the first lockdown. At one point, a Norrie first serve hit a boy in the crowd in the face, and the 25-year-old presented him with his towel to help comfort the youngster. The pressure on Norrie right from the start was relentless, but the South African-born battler coped well until he cracked in the seventh game, and that was the first set gone. It was a similar story in the second, only this time he crumbled in the third.
Two sets down, Norrie needed to regroup, and he held his nerve superbly to lead 4-3, then saved two break points to somehow lead 6-5. Suddenly, he broke Federer to love - and incredibly, from an apparently hopeless position, he was into a fourth set.
Another double fault at 2-2 in the fourth set looked costly – but Norrie broke back to level at 3-3.
Federer pounced on another break point to lead 5-4 – and there was no way back.