Roland Garros 2025: Cam Norrie knocks out former world No.1 Daniil Medvedev in five sets
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Cam Norrie had a day to remember at Roland Garros as he stunned 11th seed Daniil Medvedev in five sets to book his place in the second round.
Despite surrendering a two-set lead and with Medvedev having the chance to serve out the match in the deciding set, Norrie rallied back to beat the former world No.1 7-5, 6-3, 4-6, 1-6, 7-5 in three hours and 52 minutes.
It’s the first time that Norrie has beaten the former US Open champion in their five meetings, having never won a set against him until today.
It also means that three British men and three British women (Norrie, Jack Draper, Jacob Fearnley, Katie Boulter, Emma Raducanu and Sonay Kartal) have won first round matches at Roland Garros for the first time in the Open Era.
“I really felt like I had the momentum there,” Norrie said after the match. “It was like the first set, I could feel the energy and I managed to get over the line.
"It was a crazy match, he’s so tough to beat. I think I deserve a diploma for beating Medvedev, he’s got me the last four times. It was an unreal match and an amazing win for me.
When asked where the win ranked in his career, Norrie said: "For me, top three I think in terms of pure matchups. I think I have an absolutely terrible matchup against Daniil in terms of the way we play, the game style.
"Outside of Alcaraz and Sinner, Novak, he would be probably the fourth toughest draw for me in terms of matchups and players. Extremely good win."
This was a huge step for Norrie in the context of his season and marks his first top 20 win on clay since beating Carlos Alcaraz in the 2023 Rio de Janeiro final.
The Brit has been in good form on the clay recently, making the semi-finals of the Geneva and a third round run at the Italian Open.
Having lost in five sets to Pavel Kotov in the first round of Roland Garros last year, Norrie was happy to make it into the second round where he’ll play Argentina’s Federico Agustin Gomez.
Gomez came in as a lucky loser from qualifying but defeated Aleksandar Kovacevic in the opening round. This will be the first meeting between the pair.
Norrie shows fight to knock out 11th seed
Despite looking the stronger of the two players throughout the opening set, Norrie almost let it slip through his fingers after Medvedev saved break points on two service games before going on to take a 5-3 lead.
Norrie stayed positive however and continued to bring a more aggressive style than usual and made life increasingly difficult for Medvedev in the long rallies. He eventually got his reward with a break back at 5-4, which spurred him on to win seven straight games – wrapping up the first set and taking full command of the second.
Medvedev seemed almost disinterested throughout much of the second set and moving into the third it seemed like Norrie had it wrapped up, but the world No.12 had other plans.
Trailing by two sets, Medvedev seemed to loosen up and started turning a lot of his errors from the first two sets into winners. Having saved a break point midway though the third set, the 20-time ATP title-winner broke in the final game to get one back on the board and then cruised out to a 5-0 lead in the fourth.
Having fought back to a decider all momentum was with Medvedev and once he took an early break it looked like the writing was on the wall for Norrie.
Like in the first set Medvedev had the chance to step up and serve for the match at 5-4 but Norrie conjured up his final reserves to lift his energy one last time. The British No.3 hustled for every ball to break back and level before striking again on Medvedev’s final service game.
With the contest on the line, Medvedev pushed the ball long on Norrie’s first and only match point to wrap up a statement win for the Brit.
