GREAT Britain’s Cameron Norrie has continued his remarkable revival this season, with the 26-year-old hitting his straps and bolting up into the Top 20 for the first time in his career. Coming into 2021, Norrie held a 51-60 win-loss record on the ATP Tour with no ATP Tour titles to his name. Fast forward to today, and Norrie now has two, and has risen up to 16th in the world. The latest success was a remarkable win over Nikoloz Basilashvili in the BNP Paribas Final at Indian Wells.

Norrie produced a remarkable come-from-behind win over the Georgian, getting up 3-6 6-4 6-1 to take out the ATP 1000 title, becoming the first man outside the Top 25 to do so in 11 years. The 29th seed only hit 10 winners, but also just 25 unforced errors as he held firm with his counter-punching style to wear down Basilashvili and rise from 26th to 16th in the world.

“It means so much to me, my biggest title. I’m so happy. I can’t even describe it right now,” Norrie said post-match. “It was a strange match today but absolutely massive for me and my team. I can’t really believe it. If you’d have told me I’d have won before the tournament started I wouldn’t have believed you, so it’s amazing.”

Norrie leapfrogged Daniel Evans as the new British number one player in the process, and produced impressive wins, including against the likes of Roberto Bautista Agut, Diego Schwartzman and Grigor Dimitrov on the way to his crown. Up against the power-packed Basilashvili who took down second seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarter finals, Norrie weathered the storm to turn the match around after the first set.

“I was a little bit uncomfortable. It was quite windy and… for a stage he went through, he hit so many winners and it was tough for me to get some confidence on my rally balls because the rallies were really short,” Norrie said. “He was just blasting winners, so when I made a couple of those big shots at that 5-4 game in the second set it gave me a lot of confidence.

“I was able to find my feet and start moving again. I made the rallies physical like I’d been doing all tournament and it worked in my favour.”

The title moved Norrie into 10th overall for the ATP Race to Turin, which takes place next month. He is remarkably within striking distance given the likelihood that Rafael Nadal will not compete, putting him second for the final spot behind Hubert Hurkacz at this stage. Basilashvili moved up to 15th in the Race to Turin with the runner-up effort.

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Picture credit: ATP Tour