Rio de Janeiro [Brazil], February 24 : Cameron Norrie sealed a spot in the semifinal with his great poise performance against home favourite Thiago Seyboth Wild at the Rio Open.
He faced the first real test of his title defence at the Rio Open as the Briton held off a comeback charge to notch a 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 victory. Norrie will meet 22-year-old qualifier Mariano Navone in the semifinals.
"I was just really proud of how I fought hard. It was so humid and it was tough physically. I managed to break there in the end, so I'm proud of myself," Norrie said in a post-match as quoted by ATP.
"It's massive. I had a tough patch at the end of last year and I just wanted to stay strong. It's wins like this that make it count," Norrie said of returning to a tour-level semi-final.
Having been made to pay for a lapse in the second set, Norrie won the final set 5-1 and avoided having to face a breakpoint.
Encouraged by his local crowd, Seyboth Wild saved one of his three break points in that game by clipping the line with a floating passing shot, but when he served to stay in the match, he was unable to overcome a 0/40 hole.
Norrie became the third reigning champion in Rio to advance to the semi-finals, having reached his 24th tour-level semi-final (14-9). After winning the tournament in 2022, Carlos Alcaraz advanced to the final of the previous season (losing to Norrie), while Rafael Nadal reached the semifinals in 2015. There has never been a double Rio singles champion.
The opposite semifinal will be an all-Argentine clash between fourth seed Francisco Cerundolo and fifth seed Sebastian Baez. Baez registered a 6-4, 1-6, 6-2 triumph against Brazil's Thiago Monteiro earlier on Friday, while Cerundolo defeated Dusan Lajovic 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.
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