Cam Norrie Captures First ATP Title

It was a big day for former TCU men’s tennis player Cam Norrie as he captured his first career ATP title and his first title since turning pro. In only his sixth tournament since going pro, he was able to win five straight matches, including three against seeded opponents, to win the Binghamton Challenger title.

Norrie opened the tournament by defeating the No. 3 seed Ramkumar Ramanathan 7-6, 6-2 and followed that by taking down Daniel Nguyen 6-3, 6-3 to advance to the quarterfinals. He then faced his second seeded opponent, No. 8 seed Blaž Rola, and defeated him 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 to advance into the semifinals. Next, Norrie squared off against Christian Harrison and dominated the match 6-2, 6-2 to advance to the final.

In the final today, Cam faced off against the No. 1 seed Jordan Thompson, ranked #79 in the world. Norrie was able to capture the opening set 6-4, but Thompson was able to cruise through the second set 6-0 in order to force a decisive set.

Thompson continued to roll and took a commanding 4-1 lead in the final set. Trailing 30-0 in that 6th game of the set though, Norrie turned it on and was able to come back to win the set 6-4 and take home the trophy. The final point can be seen here:

Alex Rybakov, TCU’s No.2 singles player for much of this past season, also competed in the tournament and defeated Adam El Mihdawy 6-3, 6-2 in the opening round before being eliminated by Thompson 6-3, 6-3 in the second round.

Norrie and Rybakov also teamed up to play doubles in Binghamton and advanced all the way to the semifinals before being eliminated by Denis Kudla and Daniel Nguyen.

With the tournament title, Norrie is essentially guaranteed entrance into the qualifying draw for the US Open, the final Grand Slam event of 2017. He entered the week ranked #275 in the ATP singles rankings but should rise up into the top 200. It will be interesting to see how high he can rise before heading to the US Open toward the end of August.