Cameron Norrie took on Frances Tiafoe at the Hurlingham exhibition earning himself a win at the Giorgio Armani Tennis Classic.
If you saw the name of the event you'd maybe think that the players played in suits but they didn't, they played in regular tennis kits. The tennis they showed was far better than the humour in the previous sentence and that's very good because people came to the famous London club to see some good tennis.
Anytime you have Tiafoe on a court it's almost a semi-exhibition as the American never shies away to try and win the points in creative ways. When you have him in a proper exhibition then it's basically a show. The first set of this match went to Norrie 6-3 as Tiafoe played a bit loose. You know, too loose.
He didn't tank or diminish his effort but he didn't really seem all too focused either. He managed to play much better in the second set which is quite common for him. His knees won't be too happy in 50 years over his propensity to play more sets than he needs to but that's not a problem now, is it? If he showed the second-set level in the first one, he might have won in two.
In the end, he didn't win at all as Norrie was able to finish things off in the match tiebreak. The final score was 6-3 3-6 10-6 for the Brit who hasn't had that great of a grass season. Certainly, not one that would make you think that he will do damage at Wimbledon as he did last year. Truthfully it's not his favourite surface either so.
When it comes to Tiafoe, he's not done with the Hurlingham exhibition. He will face Novak Djokovic on Thursday and that should be a good one. It will be the only match Djokovic will play before Wimbledon and Tiafoe recently won a trophy in Stuttgart so he's playing well too.
0 Comments