Misc Tennis

Western and Southern Open: Andy Murray loses to fellow Briton Cameron Norrie in Cincinnati

Cameron Norrie and Andy Murray smile after their Cincinnati Open match

Cameron Norrie recovered from a sloppy start to earn a first career win over Andy Murray in their all-British clash and reach the Cincinnati third round.

Norrie, 26, won 3-6 6-3 6-4 in what was only the British number one’s second competitive meeting with Murray.

Murray, 35, took advantage of errors from Norrie to win the first set, but faded late in the decider as the world number 11 completed the fightback.

Norrie faces American teenager Ben Shelton, who beat Casper Ruud, next.

Shelton, 19, was given a wildcard and reached the last 16 with a 6-3 6-3 win over Norwegian fifth seed Ruud.

Australia’s Nick Kyrgios lost for only the third time in 19 matches when he was beaten 6-3 6-2 by American Taylor Fritz.

Wimbledon semi-finalist Norrie and former world number one Murray were followed onto the centre court at the Western and Southern Open by British women’s number one Emma Raducanu.

The 19-year-old US Open champion thrashed Belarus’ former world number one Victoria Azarenka, just 18 hours after she also comprehensively beat American great Serena Williams in Tuesday’s night session.

Cramps a ‘big concern’ for Murray

While Murray’s season has again been punctuated by setbacks, notably the abdominal injury suffered in the Stuttgart final and a second-round exit at Wimbledon, it has been more encouraging than others recently.

His challenge since returning from career-saving hip surgery in 2019 has been spending more time on the court – and the world number 47 has now played more matches in 2022 than any year since 2016.

The target after losing to 20th seed John Isner at Wimbledon was improving his ranking sufficiently to be among the seeds at the upcoming US Open.

After back-to-back defeats in Washington and Montreal, a deep run was required in Cincinnati to achieve that and his already-slim hopes were ended by the defeat to Norrie.

Murray lost serve in the first game of the match before finding rhythm to win the opening set against one of his successors as Britain’s leading men’s player.

Norrie and Murray’s only previous meeting came at Beijing in 2019, with Murray winning in three sets on the hard court

Norrie cut out the errors to take the second set and crucially fought off three break points, with Murray damaging a string on the first and then pushing a short forehand wide on the last, at 3-2 in the decider.

As a result, the set remained delicately poised in the latter stages until Murray began to struggle physically under consistent pressure from his younger…

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