WIMBLEDON 2022 – For the first time since 2016, a Briton will play in the Wimbledon semi-finals. If Andy Murray failed in the 2nd round this year, Cameron Norrie will face Novak Djokovic to join Nick Kyrgios in the final.
He arrived on his bike, as usual at this Wimbledon 2022 before playing the most important quarter-final of his career. In this period of Tour de France, Cameron Norrie may have decided to pay tribute to his compatriots Chris Froome or Bradley Wiggins . The 12th player in the world who qualified this Wednesday for the first Grand Slam semi-final of his career by eliminating David Goffin ( 3-6, 7-5, 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 ), admitted that “ It’s nice to beat the traffic and it’s a good warm-up . to come to Wimbledon by bike. But if he likes to pedal on a bike, it is with a racket in hand that Norrie excels.
A globetrotting childhood
If the Briton will have to confront the master of the place and defending champion, Novak Djokovic , he can count on the undeniable support of the English public behind his darling. Because since 2016, Wimbledon fans are still waiting to see a Briton take over from Andy Murray, the last player to have reached this stage of the competition, but above all the last to have won the English major .
Yet for Cameron Norrie, nothing was meant for the British people to worship him at home. Born in 1995, in South Africa in Johannesburg, this son of a Scotsman and a Welshman, both microbiologists by profession, moved to New Zealand at just three years old. Gifted for cricket, one of the most popular sports in the country, he finally devoted himself to tennis very late, at the age of fifteen . While he entered the top 10 juniors in March 2013, a month later he decided at the age of 16 to take the nationality of his parents to benefit from greater financial assistance.
The difficulty of moving on
Launched on the right track, he left for the United States in Texas at the Christian University of Fort Worth. He studied there for 3 years, and finished first in the university rankings. An experience that allowed him to win three ITF tournaments in 2015 and 2016 while still a student, and even to reach the final of the Aptos Challenger tournament.
Invited since Wimbledon 2017 on the Grand Slam tournaments, it was not until 2019 that he played his first ATP 250 tournament final, at home in Auckland where he lost to Tennys Sandgren . Since 2021, the Briton has truly revealed himself by playing no less than 6 ATP finals, and even allows himself the luxury of winning the Indian Wells Masters 1000 , moved for the occasion to the fall. With this rise in power, he won two additional tournaments this year, but lost to Rafael Nadal at the Acapulco tournament.
A Grand Slam first
But it is in Grand Slam that the native of Johannesburg is struggling to pass a course. In 18 participations, the Briton had failed to climb beyond the stage of the third round. A performance that he was able to correct this year, at home on the land of his parents, by eliminating in turn, Andujar, Munar, Johnson, Paul and therefore Goffin. But against the Serb, winner of 20 Grand Slam titles, the step could be too high for the one who “didn’t feel good at the start of the match” against Goffin . And if he missed 2 of the first 3 sets against the Belgian, he will have to be 100% from the start of the match against Djokovic, if he hopes to touch his final hopes, and become the new darling of the British public.
