Cameron Norrie defeats Frances Tiafoe in Wimbledon warm-up exhibition
- Lindokuhle Mbuyisa
- 28 June 2023
British top seed Cameron Norrie overcame American Frances Tiafoe 6-3 3-6 10-6 in the Giorgio Armani Tennis Classic exhibition event at the Hurlingham Club on Tuesday.
Cameron Norrie defeated Frances Tiafoe in the Giorgio Armani Tennis Classic exhibition.
The left-handed British star continued his preparations for the upcoming Wimbledon with a 6-3 3-6 10-6 victory over world number ten Frances Tiafoe.
Norrie had come into this exhibition event on the back of an impressive showing at Queen's where he managed to reach the last eight before losing to American Sebastien Korda.
The 27-year-old Brit showed his intentions early on in his encounter against Tiafoe, taking the opening game on serve with an ace and forcing an early break chance to go 3-1 up.
Tiafoe, who recently won the Stuttgart Open title on grass and defeated Norrie when they last met in the quarter-finals at Indian Wells in March, fought until the score was 5-3 before the British star produced a backhand winner to close the first set.
A breakpoint was survived by the American in the second set before he converted his own in the sixth game, opening up a 5-2 lead and then serving out to level the match.
Due to exhibition regulations, a ten-point match tie-breaker decides the winner instead of playing a third set.
World number 13 Norrie then managed to force some errors from Tiafoe, which led to his first mini-break at 6-4 before going on to convert a match point on serve and completing the win.
The 2023 Rio Open winner will take on Norwegian world number four Casper Ruud at Hurlingham on Thursday.
