LONDON, United Kingdom – Milos Raonic dug deep to defeat world top-40 Cameron Norrie in a third-round tiebreaker at the Queen’s tournament on Monday.
The Unifolié representative took the honors of the first round match by a score of 6-7 (6), 6-3 and 7-6 (9). He scored an impressive total of 47 aces, which represents a new record for a match played in the best of three sets format. Ivo Karlovic held the old mark with 45 against Tomas Berdych.
After escaping the tiebreaker in the first set, the Canadian was able to extract a break of service from the Briton in the second set. He only had to save a break point in his own serve to take the honors of the set.
Raonic had to work hard to force the tiebreaker in the final set. He trailed 6-5 and 0-30 in his service, except that the 186th racket in the world turned the tide to bring his opponent to the limit.
Norrie, 39th in the ATP rankings, responded when he earned a tiebreaker point on Raonic’s serve to build a slim 2-1 lead. The Canadian responded with four consecutive points to find himself at 5-2. The wind changed again, so Norrie came back to tie the score.
Raonic had a match point, but he sent a backhand into the net when the score was 6-5 in his favor. This time facing match point himself at 6-7, Raonic saw Norrie also escape a backhand of his own behind the baseline.
Finalist of the tournament in 2016, Raonic was impactful on his third match point and a well-placed forehand gave him victory after 2 hours 15 minutes of play.
In the next round, he will face the winner of the duel between Taylor Fritz and Taro Daniel.
For his part, the Dane Holger Rune, 15th in the world, was eliminated in the first round of the ATP 500 tournament by the Australian Jordan Thompson (43rd) 4-6, 7-6 (7/4), 6-3.
For their first face-to-face on the circuit, the 30-year-old Australian battled for a little over two hours to overcome the young Dane (21), seeded number 7 in the second most prestigious tournament on grass. after Wimbledon.
In the next round, Thompson, winner earlier this year in Los Cabos of his first tournament on the main circuit, will face the winner of the match between his compatriot Alexei Popyrin (48th) and former world number one Andy Murray, now 129th and who benefited from an invitation.
