And then there were none. On Fragile Friday the remaining British hopes in the men’s draw bid farewell to Wimbledon and while both Liam Broady and Cameron Norrie will have regrets over opportunities spurned, in the end their defeats felt inevitable.
Norrie was knocked out by Chris Eubanks mid-afternoon, the towering American showing a greater touch and temperament than his higher-ranked opponent. As for Liam Broady, a second upset in two days proved beyond the 29-year-old as the No 26 seed, Denis Shapovalov, piled on the pressure for a 4-6, 6-2, 7-5, 7-5 win to leave the endearing Stockport trier wilting in the evening heat.
“It’s been a good week, a positive week,” Broady said. “Obviously to make the third round, being ranked 140 in the world, that’s an upset in itself. Beating Casper on Centre Court yesterday, it feels like it was a week ago already.”
In a match that began with three consecutive breaks of serve, Broady earned two of them as he carried the confidence from his exploits over Casper Ruud into a second day, backed by a big crowd on No 2 Court. Shapovalov sprang back to claim the second set with room to spare, but Broady broke again in the third set and at one point led 5-2.
It was at that point the match turned decisively. Shapovalov found a new gear as Broady tried to serve out, his shots found more bounce, his placement became more dangerous. Broady, meanwhile, showed the first signs of tiredness. He was broken, and Shapovalov won five games in a row to take the set.
While the fourth set ran with serve until 5-5 there was a feeling of foreboding in the air. As the finishing line loomed and the sun began to decline, Shapovalov struck again, upping his intensity in a way Broady could not match. Forehands went long, volleys into the net and the Canadian had his break. He served out to claim victory but chose not to celebrate as he walked to the net and embraced his opponent who had come up short, but still left a mark on the tournament.
“To be honest, it’s tough at this level because I think for me to compete with someone like Denis, I probably need to be at the tip-top of my game,” Broady said afterwards. “Probably an hour into the match, your legs feel pretty heavy. So I was glad that I won the first set because otherwise it might have been a straight-sets victory for him. Denis was just the better player, better man out there today. But, again, I think I can take the positives from it.”
There was more of a celebration from Eubanks after he produced the kind of play he has rarely shown on the grand slam stage to earn a 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, 7-6(3) victory and perhaps raise a couple of eyebrows among future opponents. “Credit to him, I got outplayed,” Norrie said. “I fought as hard as I could but I came up against someone who was really confident. He played great. So he definitely deserved to win the match. I told him that.”
A match that started out looking as if it would be decided by tie-breaks – it took until the fourth game of the first set before a point was dropped – turned out to be full of consequential games and a highly enjoyable contest for a No 1 Court crowd that was backing Norrie but had time for the calm, not uncharismatic Eubanks too.
Eubanks broke Norrie in the first set with a forehand blitz in which the ball stayed low as the British No 1 tried to scoop returns in vain. Norrie hit back in the second, catching the American with an early break. The third set was dominated by Eubanks with a break at beginning and end as he was increasingly able to rely on his brutal forehand.
The fourth, meanwhile, ebbed and flowed and went to a tie-break. Had a net cord not helped Eubanks to recover a mini-break it might have gone in Norrie’s favour but in the end the forehand won out and Eubanks did celebrate, silently stretching his hands out to meet deserved applause.
After a high-flying 2022, Norrie has come back to earth with first-week exits in all three slams. “I’m disappointed, I wanted to play well at the slams,” Norrie said. “It’s not quite working out for me right now. I’m preparing as well as I can, leaving no stone unturned with my team, my preparation and everything. I just need to keep improving.”
