French Open 2023: British singles hopes ended as Cameron Norrie bows out to Lorenzo Musetti
ritish hopes ended in the singles on Friday when Cameron Norrie was outclassed 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 by Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti.
The British No1 had gone into the third-round tie the marginal underdog despite being three places higher ranked at 14th in the tournament.
And after such a strong start against Lucas Pouille in the preceding round, he never really got going in his bid to set up a potential last-16 encounter against world No1 and tournament favourite Carlos Alcaraz.
In contrast, Musetti, who had previously pushed Novak Djokovic to five sets at the 2021 French Open, had conceded just 11 games in six previous sets.
Norrie was broken in his opening service game, which set the tone in a thoroughly one-sided set against an opponent who had beaten him when they last faced each other in Barcelona last month.
Back then, Norrie had picked up the opening set before being gradually unpicked by Musetti and losing in three sets.
On Friday, he was on the backfoot throughout. He quashed something nearing a wipeout with a fightback in the third set, recovering from a break down to level to briefly take the ascendancy in that set.
But it was too shortlived as Musetti broke him again and, in the process, Norrie suffered a hat-trick of third-round French Open exits.
Norrie aside, it was a fairly limp showing from the British singles contingent. Including Brits in qualifying, they boasted just eight wins from 13 players on a surface where GB players have habitually struggled.
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