Cameron Norrie became the first and only Brit to make it through to this year’s Wimbledon quarter-finals with a battling five-set win over Nicolas Jarry – but there was frostiness between the pair immediately after the match.
Norrie surrendered a two-set lead as the gripping showdown went all the way to a decider, which the home favourite won before collapsing onto the Court 1 turf. Jarry, who complained to the chair umpire about Norrie hesitating before serving earlier in the contest, seemed to be irked by the lengthy celebration as he did not wait for his opponent at the net.
Instead, Norrie shook the umpire’s hand before going over to Jarry’s seat and forcing the handshake himself. A few choice words were exchanged amid boos from the watching crowd, before they ended with a pat on the shoulder and a final handshake.
Norrie – ranked 61st in the world – was in the shadows of Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu leading into the tournament but he has outstayed them both with an impressive run at the All England Club. He and Sonay Kartal started the day as the only two Brits remaining, but Kartal was knocked out by Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Centre Court.
Jarry has been struggling with a severe case of vestibular neuritis – an inner-ear disorder which can cause dizziness and affect the eyes – for more than a year, but he still managed to scalp eighth seed Holger Rune in the first round and hungry up-and-comer Joao Fonseca in the third.
With this kind of resilience, though, Norrie proved a task too tough to overcome as the last Brit standing conjured more of his relentless reliability and showed the best of his battling qualities to get the job done, despite watching a boat-load of aces fly past him.
The big-serving Chilean, standing 6ft 7in tall, racked up a staggering 46 of them over the course of the match, with Norrie only managing eight. But it mattered not as the man with the crowd on his side pulled through, setting up a date with either Carlos Alcaraz or Andrey Rublev in the last eight.
In his on-court interview, Norrie explained exactly what had got on Jarry’s nerves, saying: “He said I was a little bit vocal and I think that’s my energy.
“I was pulling [energy] from my team and then I just said, ‘man, you competed so well and hung in there so well and it was an amazing, competitive match’. I love it, I loved the Chilean fans too, and you guys definitely pulled me through the match there at the end.”