The Brits made the afternoon bitter for the Spaniard, who was seeking his second consecutive trophy after returning to the pitch through injury. With this win, the South African-born man got his revenge after losing in the Argentina Open final a week ago.
A hard-fought victory, which also offered him the fifth crown of his career, was won this Sunday Cameron Norrie (13th) after beating Carlos Alcaraz (2nd) – current champion of the contest – in the final of the ATP 500 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by partials of 5-7, 6-4 and 7-5 .
The British took revenge on the Spaniards executioner of the Chilean Nicolás Jarry (139°) in the semi-finals, after the Hispanic beat him just seven days ago during the definition of the ATP 250 in Buenos Aires.
Sunday’s duel began with the two tennis players solidly holding their serve until 4-4, at which point Norrie began to show difficulty holding serve, a situation which Alcaraz eventually took advantage of to break game 12 and close the set 7-5 in his favor after 59 minutes.
In the second set, the match experienced irregularities, with successive breaks from the two tennis players -5 in total- which ended up giving the advantage to the British with a 6-4 in 48 minutes which forced the contest champion to settle for a third set.
The last set started the same way as the previous one: without a clear dominator on the court to take the reins of the game. Actually, breaks continued to be the tonic of a match that was only defined after twelve games with a 7-5 final for 13th in the standings in 56 minutes of play.
With this victory, Cameron Norrie won the fifth title of his professional career -and the first of the year- after those made in Los Cabos and Indian Wells in 2021, and Delray Beach and Lyon in 2022.
Track to El Deportivo
Source: Latercera
I’m Rose Brown , a journalist and writer with over 10 years of experience in the news industry. I specialize in covering tennis-related news for Athletistic, a leading sports media website. My writing is highly regarded for its quick turnaround and accuracy, as well as my ability to tell compelling stories about the sport.
