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Great Britain’s Cameron Norrie made a return to triumphant ways in the first round of the Swedish Open in Bastad, defeating Slovakia’s Jozef Kovalik in straight sets.
On the back of a third-round elimination at Wimbledon, where he overcame Jack Draper – the man who replaced him as British number one – before falling to Alexander Zverev, Norrie headed to Scandinavia as the fifth seed for the clay tournament.
Despite being pushed all the way in the first set against Kovalik – ranked 102nd in the world – Norrie came through a critical tie-breaker and needed just one break in the second set to win 7-6[4] 6-4 in one hour and 35 minutes.
An incredibly cagey first set saw no player fashion a single chance to break, although Norrie went on the offensive after edging the tie-breaker and had two break points in Kovalik’s opening service game in the second set.
The Briton failed to convert either of them, though, while also missing another two in the sixth game, but he faced no trouble whatsoever behind his own serve and subsequently brought up three match points on return.
Kovalik went five out of five for break points saved as he clawed back the deficit to 15-40, but a hitherto wasteful Norrie finally took his sixth chance to break the world number 102 and see out a merited victory.
By virtue of getting the job done in the first round, Norrie may have earned himself a date with the greatest man to ever grace a clay court, Rafael Nadal, who is ending a two-month absence from the ATP Tour in Sweden.
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The 14-time French Open champion takes on Leo Borg in his singles opener on Tuesday, and the winner will take on Norrie in the second round, but Nadal already made a triumphant comeback on Monday.
Having opted to skip the grass-court season – thereby denying himself a Wimbledon farewell – Nadal played his first match since the French Open in the men’s doubles, teaming up with Casper Ruud to battle Guido Andreozzi and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela.
The Argentine and Mexican pair were seeded second for the doubles draw, but Nadal and Ruud ran out comprehensive 6-1 6-4 victors in the former’s first Swedish Open match since 2005.
“It’s a pleasure playing with a good friend and an amazing player like Casper here in Bastad. Personally, I am happy and I think it was a good match. We played quite well in the first time we played together and I’m happy to be back here after almost 20 years,” Nadal said on the court.
As well as a potential singles battle, Nadal and Norrie may also cross paths in the doubles second round; the British number two teams up with Mariano Navone to face Theo Arribage and Roman Safiullin tomorrow.
