Cameron Norrie of Great Britain beat Taylor Fritz of the United States 6-4 5-7 6-4 at the United Cup in Sydney on Wednesday to level the score at 1-1. The match lasted two hours and 15 minutes.
It was the second impressive win in the tournament for the 27-year-old Brit after his victory over Rafael Nadal last week. Norrie now looks to have a solid preparation ahead of the Australian Open.
We will now take a look at how the match went on:
Both players use topspin forehands, with Norrie’s backhand holding its own:
Both Norrie and Fritz played their forehands with a lot of topspin from the very beginning. It was a bit surprising that Fritz did not hit his forehands with more venom, as he is renowned for having a robust forehand.
However, it was Norrie’s backhand, which is not too much of a fancied shot, that won him a few points in the first set. Norrie got the break quite early to lead 3-1 and then kept holding his serve to draw capture the set.
Fritz hit a lot of approaches and powerful forehands as the match progressed:
Fritz kept hitting his forehand with more power and more intent as the match progressed. Moreover, the American also hit a few approaches to set up points and then finished them with volleys.
That tactic paid off as the 25-year-old American managed to go a break up and drew level by winning the second set.
Norrie’s crosscourt forehand forced Fritz to falter at times:
Norrie’s crosscourt forehand typically kept targeting Fritz’s backhand repeatedly and the American, despite possessing a good backhand, faltered on a few occasions to hand the Brit an advantage.
Norrie managed to break Fritz and then finished off the match, as the American hit one of his shots wide on match point. The Brit looks a solid pick to go deep in the Australian Open and is one of the in-form players at the moment.
Main Photo from Getty.
