WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU CAM!
Brilliant Norrie lights up the fanatical crowd and even gets Royal approval as he blasts his way into semi-finals for first time
HE may have been born in South Africa, raised in New Zealand and finished his schooling in the United States, but we can now safely say Cameron Norrie is, officially, a true Brit.
A true Brit with true grit. In front of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, that is the only thing that got him through to a semi-final meeting with the tennis royalty that is Novak Djokovic.
When he gave his tearful post-match, on-court interview (below), you could tell Norrie was barely able to believe he would be duelling with the six-time Wimbledon champion on Centre Court this Friday.
Not that he does not belong in such rarefied company, because he most certainly does – Norrie is seeded ninth here and is ranked No.12 in the world.
But what he was barely able to believe was that he was so far from his top form, so out of sorts in terms of ball-striking, yet still managed to see off David Goffin.
In a way, that is what will make this victory so very satisfying, so very sweet.
The two weapons that eventually put the unseeded Belgian to the sword were mental and physical strength.
On tour, the imaginatively nicknamed Nozzer is renowned for his engine and it certainly got him to the chequered flag on a raucous Court No.1.
As the sole Brit standing – albeit a very cosmopolitan Brit – and with a world ranking 46 places higher than Goffin’s, there was clearly an added layer of pressure on Norrie.
If he was a bit miffed at not being on Centre Court, he had a point, but that did not excuse a series of mistakes that helped Goffin – at 31, five years Norrie’s senior – take the first set without doing anything spectacular.
And it was only sheer willpower that enabled Norrie to put together a decent run of games to take the second set.
But it looked to be a false dawn as the unforced errors continued and Goffin won the third set in a canter. Although Kate was already in attendance, maybe it was the arrival of William that gave Norrie the spark he needed.
Or maybe Norrie did not even see the Duke and Duchess (below), maybe he just knew that if he could dig deep enough into his reserves, Goffin was still there for the taking. And so, in dramatic fashion, it proved to be, as the ricks kept coming but the winners more than kept pace with them, Norrie taking the final two sets 6-3 7-5.
Having become only the fourth British player to reach a mens’ singles semi-final in the Open era, he now meets a Djokovic gunning for his fourth consecutive Wimbledon title.
That will be a mountainous challenge for a player who, despite his talent and elevated ranking, had not actually made it past the third round of a Grand Slam tournament before his run at these Championships.
But not only is he through to the last four of Wimbledon, he has given the British sporting public the type of emotionally charged occasion Andy Murray once provided on a regular basis.
He also demonstrated the bloody-minded determination and refusal to believe he would be beaten that made Murray a national treasure.
Norrie – whose mother is Welsh and father is Scottish – is not quite that yet… but we can now safely call him a true Brit.