Cameron Norrie tomorrow bids to reach the Wimbledon final as he takes on Novak Djokovic in front of a packed Centre Court at SW19.
Among those cheering him on will be girlfriend Louise Jacobi, 23, who has opened up for the first time about their romance.
She told how the pair met at a New York bar three years ago and has travelled around the world to support him ever since.
She was in tears after Norrie beat Belgian David Goffin in five epic sets on Tuesday.
“It was surreal,” she said.
“When your significant other is crying in front of you - like choking up - how could I keep a dry eye?
“I remember him saying when we first met: ‘Oh, my dream would be to be in the top 10.’
“Back then I didn’t know it was going to transpire, and just watching his hard work pay off has been insane.”
Chicago-born Ms Jacobi said she was introduced to Norrie in the summer of 2019 by mutual friends after he had been studying at the Texas Christian University (TCU), and “the rest is history”.
Ms Jacobi, who has a fine art degree from the University of Michigan, revealed how initially she “just wasn’t interested” in the Johannesburg-born 26-year-old because he was always away on tennis tours.
But it was Norrie’s “persistence” and the fact he did “an amazing job at keeping in touch” even when they were thousands of miles apart that allowed their early relationship to flourish.
In October 2019, Ms Jacobi’s former employer went bankrupt and she lost her job - so Norrie asked her to join him at the Erste Bank Open in Vienna, Austria.
“When he asked me, I thought: ‘I guess this guy doesn’t live a normal life, and it’s not like I can meet (him) down the street and go to dinner together’,” she recalled.
“So I went on this trip and was only supposed to be in Vienna for five days, and things just went really well. I had a wonderful time with him.
“In some weird way, I was like: ‘Thank God I got laid off when I did’, because we were able to build the foundation of our relationship before Covid hit.”
When asked what Norrie is like off the court, Ms Jacobi said: “Pretty similar to on the court, in the sense that he’s very calm, very level-headed, easy-going and takes things as they come.
“That’s pretty much exactly how he is.
“He loves golf and he loves playing with his trainer who stays with us a lot - backgammon, playing with their Rubik’s Cubes, timing each other and stuff like that.”
Meanwhile, Norrie’s college coach has described the sacrifices the British number one made to become a professional tennis player after a “crossroad moment” when he crashed a moped after drinking.
The 26-year-old recently revealed that he had “wake-up call” when he crashed his moped in the second year of college at Texan Christian University, (TCU) after having “one too many”.
Norrie said he had to get six stitches on his chin and missed out on a professional opportunity, adding that it was a “turning moment” and that he “really kicked me into gear”.
David Robiti, who was one of his coaches alongside Devin Bowen for “The Horned Frogs” tennis team at TCU, said that they had to sit him down and tell him to change his behaviour if he wanted to be a professional player.
Mr Robiti said: “He missed the opportunity to play a local challenger which at the time was a big opportunity from him because he got into an accident.
“What he learned from it was that he missed a big opportunity because of something that happened off court.”
Mr Robiti also said he also missed a morning practice when his parents were visiting around that time.
He added: “We were very disappointed that we were all here at 7am and he wasn’t.
“It was very rare and it only happened once but we let him know that ... we felt he was at a crossroads and how serious did he want to be.
“And credit to him, he decided he wanted to be a professional from that moment and his choices were very good.”
