Cameron Norrie sealed a semi-final spot at the Rio Open, continuing his title
defence by seeing off Brazil’s Thiago Seyboth Wild in front of his own fans.
The British No 1 secured a 6-1 3-6 6-2 victory to head into the last four.
Norrie will now face Argentina’s Mariano Navone on Saturday in the semi-final.
Having lost just two games in his win over Tomas Barrios Vera in the previous round, Norrie picked up where he left off on the clay court.
Norrie raced out of the traps, breaking Seyboth Wild’s second and third service games and holding his own to take the first set in just over half an hour.
The stands filled up considerably after a quiet start and Seyboth Wild fed off the growing support as he put together a much-improved showing to level the scores.
With his opponent starting to grow in confidence and the noise levels rising, Norrie allowed errors to creep in with cracks in his first serve and a misjudged long forehand seeing him broken for the first time.
Seyboth Wild was strong enough to make that breakthrough count and set up a deciding set but found Norrie back on his game as he tore into a 5-1 lead, breaking twice more along the way.
Norrie missed his chance to finish things off at the first attempt, burning three match points as his South American opponent showed admirable resilience in a see-saw exchange of winners.
But he soon stacked up three more match points against the serve and converted the second of them as Seyboth Wild’s unforced error ended his fight after just under two hours.
“I was really proud of how hard I fought, it was so humid and tough physically,” Norrie told Sky Sports after his win.
“It was a tough one and the atmosphere was great. These are exactly the kind of matches you want to play.”
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