The Julys of 2022 and 2025 saw record-breaking heat, the reforming of an iconic Britpop band, uncertainty over the Chancellor’s position and one man leading a lonely British charge into the second week of Wimbledon.
It was Pulp and Sajid Javid three years ago; Oasis and Rachel Reeves this time. The constant is the shimmering heat and the shuffling feet of Cam Norrie.
It took the longest match of his career for Norrie to make the quarter-finals here for a second time, an exhausting and enthralling four hour and 27 minute epic against Nicolas Jarry.
It ended 6-3, 7-6, 6-7, 6-7, 6-3. It ended, appropriately, with both men flat on the grass: Jarry after diving in vain to reach a volley, Norrie spread on the court in the ecstasy of victory.
It was an amazing match from both sides,’ said the British No3. ‘No1 Court was so loud, my friends, my family, my girlfriend there – I loved all of it.’
Last week I ran into Norrie’s old coach from his Texas Christian University days and he described a kid who ‘competed like a dog’. The 29-year-old certainly did that and after the win he rolled around on the grass like a puppy having its tummy tickled.
Cameron Norrie is through to the quarter-finals at Wimbledon after beating Nicolas Jarry
Norrie is the only British singles player still in contention at this year’s Championships
Just as in 2022, when he lost to Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals, Norrie has done much of his damage on No1 Court, his favourite arena in the world.
This was his ninth win in 10 matches on Wimbledon’s second stage – but in the last eight he faces two-time champion Carlos Alcaraz and even the most partisan of schedulers could not place that anywhere other than Centre Court.
The brilliant Spaniard beat Russian Andrey Rublev 6-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 and of course comes in as favourite. But after taking down the 6ft 7in Jarry, Norrie should fear no one.
The mountainous Chilean sent down an avalanche of winners – 103, of which 46 were aces. Yet Norrie managed to break him twice and clung on to his own more humble serve for the entire match, saving eight break points.
He restricted himself to 26 unforced errors – only three in the first set – compared to 71 from his opponent. It was a performance of colossal mental strength, especially given Norrie had a match point in the third-set tiebreak and had to wait two hours for a second, which he took with a 16-shot rally, running from corner to corner.
As Annabel Croft referenced on court after the match, Norrie has an especially large set of lungs – and he needed every square inch of alveoli to get through this one.
This was nominally a match between the 61st (that’s Norrie) and the 143rd best players in the world but there are reasons for those depressed rankings, in Jarry’s case a neurological condition which causes dizziness and vertigo, in Norrie’s an arm injury last year and growing pains as he attempted to add more attacking weaponry to his game.
Norrie was comfortably the better player across the first two sets but Jarry’s serving in the third and fourth was untouchable and he redlined through the tiebreaks.
A delighted Norrie tossed away his racquet after overcoming Chilean Jarry in a five-set epic
World No 143 Jarry won 180 points in total — just 14 fewer than Norrie — and he hit 46 aces
Jarry was unhappy at apparent slow play by Norrie and complained during and after the match
At the start of the deciding set Norrie struck at last, his break for 2-0 ending a run of 38 consecutive holds of serve between them. Jarry had three break points in the next game but Norrie found three first serves and that effectively sealed it.
A few moments of controversy added to the drama. At the end of the second set, Jarry objected to Norrie spending an age bouncing the ball between his first and second serve, especially on big points.
‘Is there a rule? Do you have to intervene or do I have to suck it up?’ Jarry asked umpire Eva Asderaki. ‘He can stop doing it. It’s not a nervous tick.’ Jarry appeared to retaliate by bouncing the ball 23 times between serves in the second set, and when Norrie responded with 23 bounces of his own the match threatened to descend into farce.
But the bounce-off was judged a score draw and the tennis continued.
Jarry confronted Norrie at the end of the match, apparently accusing him of over-celebrating. ‘He said I was a bit too vocal,’ said Norrie. ‘I guess we both really wanted to win. It was a huge match.’ A huge match, huge lungs and a huge win.
