These days, he makes it look easy. On Saturday afternoon, Norrie followed up his Wimbledon semi-final upset by calmly making his way into the fourth round of the US Open for the first time. With Norrie’s composure contrasting sharply with Holger Rune’s temper, Norrie won 7-5, 6-4, 6-1 against the 28th seed to advance. After three rounds, Norrie has yet to drop a set. “My goal today was to get to two hours and then start the race from there. Literally when it hit two o’clock, I broke to take a 2-1 lead in the third set, Facu pointed [Lugones, his coach] and I said, “Okay, now the fight begins.” He seemed to be dying a little bit,” said Norrie, who won in two hours and 12 minutes. As the match slipped away from him, the 19-year-old Rooney was pinned by Norrie. At 5-4 against Norrie in set two, he constantly complained to the umpire that Norrie had run down the 25-second service clock by catching his toss on serve and suggested it was on purpose. “He does it every time and then I have to stop. Every time,” he said. Holger Ruhn accused Norrie of intentionally running out the clock when he served. Photo: Justin Lane/EPA Rune then struck a less accusatory tone, admitting he didn’t think it was intentional: “I’ve played him before and he did the same thing every match. Maybe it’s a sign of a tight game and he’s nervous,” he said. “It wasn’t very windy today – you can’t fault it for that. That’s how he does it. He’s serving well and playing well, so all the best to him.” Norrie remained calm through Rune’s protests, holding serve for the second set through a long game and winning seven of the last eight games. He later dismissed Rune’s complaints, stating that he wasn’t catching his throw on purpose. “I stayed a lot calmer than him in a lot of big moments of the match,” he said. Norrie advances to the fourth round with a real chance for another grand slam run. He has established himself as a serial winner, with his 44 wins this year placing him third for most ATP match wins this year. He will face an even bigger challenge on Monday against either 19th-seeded Denis Shapovalov or ninth-seeded Andrey Rublev for a place in the quarterfinals.
