Cameron Norrie will celebrate a major milestone in style on Thursday afternoon in Barcelona — just as long as the weather holds.
The 28-year-old defeated Roberto Bautista Agut 6-4, 6-3 in the third round at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell to notch the 200th tour-level win of his career. Norrie, a former No. 8 in the PIF ATP Rankings, is the eighth British man to reach the 200-win milestone in the Open Era. He was happy to achieve the feat at a tournament he has always enjoyed.
“It’s a big tournament with a lot of historic past champions, so I want to try and win this tournament,” said Norrie of the Spanish clay-court ATP 500. “It’s an amazing city, and my coach lives here in Barcelona so it makes it easy for him. I just enjoy coming to this city and like being by the beach. Hopefully the sun stays out and I can go to the beach this afternoon.”
Norrie’s achievement came the day after his opponent Bautista Agut hit a milestone of his own at the Real Club de Tenis-Barcelona — the Spaniard’s second-round victory against Andrea Vavassori was the 400th of his career.
“It makes me feel very good. I didn’t actually know that,” said Norrie when asked how he felt about reaching 200 tour-level wins. “I know that yesterday Roberto got 400, so I’m halfway to his. To get 400 wins is impressive and I’ll take that, a 200th win against a top player.”
Norrie delivered a rock-solid display on Pista Rafa Nadal to increase his Lexus ATP Head2Head series lead against Bautista Agut to 3-0. The 12th seed converted five of seven break points he earned, according to Infosys ATP Stats, en route to booking a spot in the Barcelona quarter-finals for the third time.
“I think on the score it looks easy, but there were a lot of tough points in there,” said Norrie, who will play 13th seed Tomas Martin Etcheverry in the last eight. “I was really pleased with how I handled myself when serving for the first set. I had a couple of tough games at the end of the second set and played a good game to break as well.
“I was very solid. I converted the points when I was aggressive, and I felt like I was moving well and was pleased with my footwork.”