Cameron Norrie battles back from set down to stun 12th seed Frances Tiafoe at Wimbledon | Wimbledon 2025

At a vital time of a captivating match of second round here Wednesday, Cameron Norrie was as much a spectator as anyone in a partisan crowd in court n ° 1.

At a set, 4-4 and 30-40 in the second, Frances Tiafoe, the seeded n ° 12, had obtained a racket at the second stroke of Norrie and the ball took a slow and loop arc towards the key line. The band of American supporters was halfway through their seats to acclaim a vital break – only to see it land just away. A relieved Norrie had recovered at Deule from 0-40 down, and he seized the moment to hold, then breaks and gradually exercises an ever stronger grip on an match which had briefly threatened to move away from him, because he finally released a winner 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-5.

There were echoes defined as he did the form and the resilience which transported the British n ° 3 to the semi-finals here three years ago. This race deeply in the second week also propelled him to a n ° 8 in career ranking, but after a second half of 2024 against injuries, he had dropped to n ° 91 in mid-May before a race at the last 16 at the French open open to the view of the Top 50.

Tiafoe, on the other hand, entered the match supported by a better career race in the quarters of Roland Garros last month. In a tight opening set, the touch and the will of the Americans to try something different made his opponent guess during a series of basic duels, and a lower Norrie service game was sufficient to see him escape.

He served three consecutive aces to close the seventh and ninth games, but the damage had been caused in the fifth, where a fine shots by Tiafoe – including a perfectly disguised lob which left Norrie planted and perplexed – combined with a dive in the percentage of the first sector of the British player, allowing his opponent to take the only two points of breakdown. He took the second of these when Norrie was sending a forehand for sure.

The percentage of Tiafoe, on the other hand, was barely 50%, and although it has more than enough quality to beat its first -round opponent, Elmer Møller, with a striking rate similar to the first service, Norrie turned out to be a much more demanding proposal. He both fought and thought of his way in the match, and in the middle of the third set, he always found a way to retaliate the points where Tiafoe held an early advantage.

There was a great pump of the American’s fist when he quickly recovered an early break in the third, but there is no way after Norrie granted a second weak service to the breakdown in the eighth game, then served. The balance had changed slightly but decisively in his favor, and the crowd could also detect him, urging their favorite house in a fourth set which always seemed to prevent me from the Norrie way.

The moment of sliding in the second set was the first thing in the mind of Tiafoe after, especially because it was an almost carbon copy of the previous point, at 15-40, when he had also dug a decent chance of ranging a winner.

“It was two shots in the open space where I chose them, I suppose, and I did not do any of them,” he said. “I think it was a huge turning point, I thought that his intensity and belief were much higher, and he played much better. It could go anywhere in the field and the point is over, so it was difficult.”

Norrie, on the other hand, takes advantage of each stage of the process while working towards a possible return to the second week here – for the second time in his career – and the upper part of the world rankings.

“I played a unreal match,” he said. “All complete, serve well, move well, solve the drop very well, which, in the past, I have not always done. Strike the edge, introduce yourself well, be clinical.

“I think it’s a good thing to go through, being injured, not winning, then having resilience to support you.

“For me now, entering the match against Frances, being the oppressed, playing for free is much easier than in the past when the pressure was on me. It’s nice to chase other guys and be on the turnaround.”