Britain's Cameron Norrie wins the Indian Wells title

Britain’s Cameron Norrie clinched the Indian Wells men’s singles title with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 win over Nikoloz Basilashvili on Sunday. The Briton produced one of the most surprising Masters 1000 triumphs in recent memory as he fought his way back from a set down to become the first from his nation to win the fifth biggest annual tournament on the planet. Previously, Britain’s Andy Murray, Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski had reached the final in California. Meanwhile it was only his second career ATP title and with this he has achieved a new career high ranking of 16.

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

Meanwhile Basilashvili is one of the few big hitters who could consistently hit through the conditions. His victory over number three seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in the previous round is a testament to his destructive play. Norrie on the other hand played lengthy rallies and his strength was high level of endurance.

Initially, in the first set, Norrie took a 3-1 lead playing long rallies and forcing errors from Basilashvili. However, the Gregorian slowly found his range as the game progressed, moved through five consecutive games and soon took the set 6-3.

Basilashvili continued his dominance in the second set and led 2-1 before Norrie once again resorted to lengthy cross court rallies and the Gregorian started to commit more unforced errors. Norrie then took the second set with two impressive points at 5-4. First the Briton executed a brilliant drop shot and finished it off with a volley and then drilled a superb down the line back-hand passing shot winner. 

Norrie played a disciplined game

Norrie was playing a more disciplined game as he committed only one unforced error in the first three games of the final set. He recovered from a triple break point down at 2-0 to take 3-0. The Briton didn’t let go of the momentum and broke once more before serving out the match.

“I’ve been really enjoying my tennis and really been enjoying being out on court and competing in the big moments. I’m just really pleased with how I handled the occasion and I think I’m doing that a lot this year. I know I lost in a lot of finals so it’s nice to get the big one today,” he said.

“I still don’t really know what I’m experiencing,” he said. “It was an amazing couple of weeks and I’m so happy with how I treated all the occasions, all the big moments, all the matches. I’m so happy, so pleased to win my biggest title.”

Born in South Africa, Norrie has a Scottish dad and Welsh mum, and was brought up in New Zealand before playing college tennis in the United States.

While many of his peers took the more conventional route from junior tennis to the professional Futures circuit, Norrie chose to combine his sport with studying for a sociology degree.