Miami Open: Cameron Norrie suffers 2nd round defeat against Gregoire Barrere
Mar 26, 2023
Miami [US], March 26 : British 11th seed Cameron Norrie on Saturday suffered a surprise straight sets defeat in the second round of the Miami Open against France's Gregoire Barrere.
Norrie was dominated by Barrere on Saturday, with the Frenchman securing a 6-3 6-2 victory in a match that lasted for an hour and 10 minutes.
After exchanging early holds, Barrere was able to break Norrie's serve in the eighth game, becoming the first player to do so. The Briton could only give little resistance as the Frenchman easily won the match to advance to the third round and face Christopher Eubanks.
Meanwhile, Hubert Hurkacz saved five match points en route to a memorable 6-7(10), 7-6(7), 7-6(6) victory against Thanasi Kokkinakis on Saturday.
"It's tough to explain for me. I knew I was playing good tennis, I mean Thanasi [was] as well. I was just trying to stay in there and compete, play some good shots. Either way, if I won or I lost -- obviously I wanted to win so, so much -- but either way [I] should have been happy with myself," ATP.com quoted Hurkacz saying directly after his win.
"Stealing a couple of points puts a little bit more pressure on the opponent and then sometimes the opponent tries to go for a bit extra and [with] that bit extra, you can miss that shot. I was trying to make an effort to compete for every single ball and put some pressure," Hurkacz said.
Meanwhile, British No 2 Dan Evans suffered a defeat against Italian Lorenzo Sonego. Italian came from behind to register a 4-6 6-3 6-2 win against Evans in a match that lasted for two and a half hours.
Evans got a strong start, getting a break early in the first game and holding on to go up 2-0 before finishing the set.
But, the Italian, ranked 59 in the world, came back to defeat Evans in the fourth game of the second set before holding on to a crucial hold in the following game to tie the match.
The Italian maintained the advantage and broke again in the decisive set to jump out to a 4-0 lead, never looking like letting Evans get back into the match.
