Roland Garros 2025: Cam Norrie comes through all-British clash with Jacob Fearnley
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British No.3 Cam Norrie is into the fourth round at Roland Garros for the first time in his career after knocking out countryman Jacob Fearnley in straight sets.
Norrie held off a second set comeback from Fearnley to beat his fellow Texas Christian University alum 6-3, 7-6(1), 6-2 in two hours and 46 minutes.
The 29-year-old Briton had made the third round on three previous visits, but victories over 11th seed Daniil Medvedev, Federico Gomez and Fearnley have seen him achieve a career-best result so far in Paris.
This is the second time that two British men have made the fourth round at the French Open since 1963 after British No.1 Jack Draper dispatched Joao Fonseca earlier in the day. Read the full report
In the next round, Norrie could face three-time former champion Novak Djokovic. Norrie narrowly lost to Djokovic in the semi-final in Geneva only a week ago and previously lost to the Serbian in his only Grand Slam semi-final at Wimbledon.
“I feel great, but it was really tough to get there,” Norrie said in his post-match interview. “It was a tough match playing Jacob today. We both went to the same university at TCU and he’s had an amazing season and breakthrough on the tour, so I didn’t really know what to expect from him.
“I played a really solid match, I was a bit tentative towards the end, but it was a great atmosphere here. I had to work really hard for that, so it felt good.”
Fearnley leaves Roland Garros having made the round of 32 on only his first appearance at the tournament. He’s made the third round at both Grand Slams so far this season and should climb inside the world’s top 50 at the end of the tournament.
Double faults and unforced errors were the big issues for Fearnley in a stop-start opening set and a half that stopped the British No.2 from gaining any sort of rhythm.
The match was played to a backdrop of fireworks outside the stadium ahead of the Champions League final this evening, which seemed to disturb the British No.2 on serve. Fearnley hit a third double fault in two games to give Norrie the early break point needed to seize control of the set and start to build a healthy lead.
The 23-year-old hit 24 unforced errors to hand the opening set to the former world No.8 and things went from bad to worse Fearnley as he found himself 4-0 down in the second and was struggling physically.
Seeing his opponent hobbling down the other end of the court seemed to distract Norrie somewhat and it opened the door for Fearnley to break back and build some momentum. Trailing 5-3, Fearnley hit seven straight winners to eventually level the set before heading into a tie-break.
Despite missing the chance to serve out the set twice, Norrie kept his composure and was the more solid of the pair in what would become a decisive tie-break. With the errors sneaking back into Fearnley’s game, Norrie finally managed to get the second set on the board after just over two hours.
The sucker punch of losing the second set seemed to play on the mind of Fearnley early into the third, which was only made worse after Norrie stormed out to a 5-1 lead.
Norrie struggled to serve out the second set and had issues again in the third as he offered a fairly easy break to his opponent, but this time Fearnley couldn’t capitalise. On Norrie’s second match point, Fearnley hit his 13th double fault to wrap-up a hard-fought victory.
