Cameron Norrie felt he deserved a “diploma” after one of the best wins of his career, a five-set thriller against 11th seed Daniil Medvedev at the French Open.
The British number three threw his racket high into the air in delight after a marathon 7-5 6-3 4-6 1-6 7-5 victory over a player he had lost all four of his previous matches to without winning a set.
“That was just a nice release of energy,” said Norrie after his first top-20 win in 16 months.
“I think it was a good throw. I threw it pretty well, pretty accurate. I was happy it stayed on the court, it wasn’t broken. It was just kind of instinct.”
Norrie admitted he would have to run for four hours to stand any chance against the Russian, and he was not far wrong.
The 29-year-old won the first two sets but was pegged back to 2-2 and fell a break down in the decider.
However, he showed incredible resilience to win the last three games to wrap up a memorable victory in a baseline slugfest lasting three hours and 52 minutes.
“He is so tough to beat, I think I deserve a diploma for beating him because he’s beaten me the last four times,” added Norrie.
“For me, it’s in my top three wins I think in terms of pure match-ups. I have an absolutely terrible match-up against Daniil in terms of the way we play, the game style.
“He’s so tough to play, for me anyway. He absolutely gives you nothing. There’s no easy way to win points against him.
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“Especially in a slam, obviously I know he doesn’t like clay as much, but he’s won a Masters 1000 on the clay. I lost to him two weeks ago – he completely chopped me in Rome.
“For me, outside of Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic, he would be probably the fourth toughest draw for me.
“It’s an extremely good win, especially my record with him. Yeah, what’s his ranking, 11 in the world? In a slam, best-of-five, beating him in five sets is impressive for me.”
Norrie has a great chance to equal his best run at Roland Garros when he faces Argentinian lucky loser Federico Gomez in the second round.
Medvedev, who yelled and gesticulated to his team in the players’ box throughout the match, had a simple explanation for how he lost.
“I didn’t manage to serve it out,” he said. “I mean, kind of a close match. Great fight. Disappointed to lose. He played well. I didn’t play good enough. So that’s why I lost.”
