Cameron Norrie reached the French Open fourth round with a bang after beating fellow British star Jacob Fearnley.
Norrie secured a showdown with Novak Djokovic after a straight-sets win in a surreal match played out to an ear-splitting backdrop of explosions and pyrotechnics.
The din was down to thousands of Paris St Germain fans gathering for the Champions League final outside the Parc des Princes, which is a stone’s throw from Court Simonne-Mathieu and was showing the game on a big screen.
But Fearnley struggled to produce any fireworks as the more experienced Norrie extended his stay in the French capital into the second week.
It will be Norrie’s first appearance at this stage and, with Jack Draper already through, Britain has two men in the fourth round for the first time in French Open history.
Tennis players usually like to play in silence but this end of Paris was, at times, deafening.
Serving was proving difficult for both men with explosions going off almost every time one of them tossed the ball.
At one point during a crucial second-set tie-break, Norrie had to abort his service motion completely amid a series of loud bangs.
“As I was putting my bag down the umpire said ‘there’s just a couple of fireworks. We’ll just play on. No worries’,” said Norrie.
“I was thinking it was just going to be, like, a few of them in the warm-up, but yeah, it was at the most random times. It would go away for kind of 15, 20 minutes and then come back.
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“I was serving and about to hit a second serve, and then suddenly one literally felt like it was right next to me went off. I had to stop.
“It was pretty difficult for both of us to be playing with that going on. It felt like it was happening within the stadium. It was a different factor, but no, I’ve not had that one before.”
Fearnley may have overtaken Norrie in the world rankings, but the 23-year-old made a nervous start amid the racket.
Norrie was a set and two breaks up before Fearnley, who has only just completed a first full year on the Tour, found his feet and levelled the second set.
But despite the disruption, 29-year-old Norrie held his nerve in the tie-break to move two sets up.
The noise finally subsided, and the crowd shrunk considerably, as kick-off approached leaving Norrie to complete a 6-3 7-6 (1) 6-2 victory in two hours and 43 minutes.
Fearnley branded the experience “brutal”, and added “It’s far from ideal, but that’s life, isn’t it?
“I understand PSG playing is probably a bit more important than this match, so it is what it is. But, yeah, it’s tough. But it’s not the reason I lost the match.”
