Cam Norrie wins the Indian Wells Masters: Tournament Review
Where the top players fell to the slow conditions of the Californian desert, Cam Norrie emerged victorious. Here's how he beat Grigor Dimitrov and Nikoloz Basilashvili to lift the trophy.
Presenting your Indian Wells Masters champion!
Daniil Medvedev continues his reign on hard-cou-
Sorry, Stefanos Tsitsipas finds his way through a tough dr-
*Ahem* excuse me, Alexander Zver-
… what?
… what do you mean they all lost before the semis?
This wasn’t part of the script! Cam Norrie is the champion in Indian Wells, a somewhat surprising winner at Masters-level1.
Only somewhat surprising - as the top-ranked players dropped like flies, Norrie stepped forward, truly establishing himself as the best of the rest this season. If you didn’t expect Cam to take this opportunity by the scruff of the neck, you probably haven’t watched enough of his matches this year.
Never fear though! If you don’t know how Norrie emerged victorious in California, I’m here to talk you through the Brit’s stubborn style of play.
Cam Norrie’s Playing Style
In case you haven’t seen much of Cam, here’s a short introduction to his game (some of this is taken directly from the improved player analysis piece I did on him five months ago).
Cam potentially possesses the two most dissimilar groundstroke wings in the men’s game.
From Vestige_du_jour’s Miami Masters 2021 spin-rate chart, Norrie’s forehand is one of the spinniest on tour, at around 52rps (Rafa is around 55rps), whilst his two-handed backhand is one of the flattest, at around 20rps (literally the flattest on the graph).
Cam is left-handed.
This gives him a few tactical advantages against right-handed players - he has the ability to serve away from his opponent’s backhand and he is better equipped to attack his opponent’s backhand with his forehand during a rally.
Cam enjoys a physical battle.
“I am backing myself physically against the best in the world and when I am playing physical tennis and making the other guy suffer that’s when I am having success.”
These traits have been staples of the Norrie game from day one - from the analysis I conducted in May, it’s improvements to his serve and return that have been the backbone behind his success in recent months. He said it himself after his win against Dimitrov:
“I’ve made a conscious decision to be the one being more aggressive in the bigger moments… The fundamentals, the serve and return, have really been improved a lot and the location on the serve, hitting the spots a bit better, especially in the deuce games… I’m finding a lot more returns in the court and able to make the matches on my terms.”
Here’s how Cam combined his tried and tested game with his new and improved serve and return to win the title.
Indian Wells Masters Semifinal: Cam Norrie defeats Grigor Dimitrov 6-2 6-4
Grigor Dimitrov came into the semfinal against Cam Norrie having beaten Reilly Opelka, Hubert Hurkacz and Daniil Medvedev, the latter from a set and a double break down. This was one of the two or three tournaments in a season where Grigor remembered why he’d once been dubbed ‘Baby Fed’.
Norrie was well up to the task, however, unsticking the Bulgarian for the loss of only six games - here’s what happened!
Set 1: Safe to the backhand with sprinkles of return aggression
For those that somehow missed the tennis last week, the conditions are notoriously slow at Indian Wells.
Cam’s game is built for this, in a backwards way - rather than hitting through the conditions, he kills his opponents with consistency and strategy, forcing them to go for low percentage shots from uncomfortable positions in the court.
Likewise, Dimitrov was able to use the conditions to his advantage against Medvedev. Generally, the former world #3 likes to dictate play with his forehand but against Medvedev, he used his slice brilliantly, directing it cross-court to the Russian’s backhand giving him very little to work with. Medvedev doesn’t like to hit up on his backhand and the low slice pattern of play cost him eight games in a row, ultimately too much to recover from.
This pattern of play wasn’t an option against Norrie however, and the eventual champion knew it. The percentage shot on the slice is cross-court but this goes straight into Norrie’s spinny, lefty forehand - Dimitrov would have had to slice over the highest part of the net to find a potential weakness, not easy to achieve and easier for Norrie to run around than a cross-court shot.
So, Norrie overloaded Dimitrov’s backhand with effective, but safely directed, backhands to force him into playing a backhand down the line.
Norrie also targeted 78% of his serves towards Dimitrov’s backhand, recognising Dimitrov’s struggles on this wing throughout the set.
Sporadic bursts of aggression on serve and return also kept Dimitrov on his toes, never really letting him settle into the set.
Serve to Grigor’s backhand, direct the backhand safely to Grigor’s backhand and the odd bit of aggression on return - this was Norrie’s gameplan and it was working a treat.
Could Grigor respond?
Set 2: The Forehand Bites Back
Dimitrov did attempt to change up his strategy and made the second set far closer, two points separating them at the end of the set.
He started hitting a more aggressive forehand cross-court in an attempt to boss the point and came forward off the back of the most sweetly struck ones. He was also forced to take on more risk on his serve as a result of Cam’s return, his first serve in percentage dipping from 72% in the first to 49% in the second.
The strategy was a sound one but he couldn’t quite execute consistently enough at the beginning of the set. Though the first game of the second set lasted 14 points, Dimitrov failed to pull off a single unreturnable serve in this game and he couldn’t quite pull off the serve +1s he was looking for. He gifted Norrie six forehand unforced errors in this game alone as a result (Norrie made seven FH UEs the entire match).
This momentary lapse was the only break in the second set, the two players actually splitting the remainder of the points evenly. Dimitrov’s point construction using his forehand was closer to his level against Medvedev (he won the majority of the points 5+ shots in the second set) - Cam was forced to stave off a fightback by being “more aggressive in the bigger moments”.
Though Dimitrov looked more like the player that beat Medvedev and Hurkacz by the latter stages of the match, Norrie’s original game plan combined with his ability to execute plays in the pressure moments (plays he might have struggled to execute even a year ago) were enough to see him over the line.
Whew… who’s up next?
Indian Wells Masters Final: Cam Norrie defeats Nikoloz Basilashvili 3-6 6-4 6-1
The last hurdle for Cam Norrie - Nikoloz Basilashvili is arguably the biggest hitter on the tour, one of the few that has the ability to hit through the stagnant conditions in the Californian desert.
But like all others before him, Basilashvili was eventually unpicked by Norrie over three sets.
Here’s how Cam did what he does best.
Removing The Serve
Basilashvili might be electric from the back of the court but unlike Grigor Dimitrov, his serve leaves a lot to be desired. He has the 15th-lowest ace percentage and the 3rd-lowest first serve percentage (56.7%) in the top 50 this year - bottom line is the Georgian struggles to win free points using his serve alone.
Interestingly, Basilashvili accepted this problem in his semfinal against Taylor Fritz by putting in a high percentage of first serves, hitting them at around 85% of their usual pace, preventing the American from teeing off on his second serve.
Norrie employed a different strategy to Fritz’s aggressive return tactics and to his own against Dimitrov.
Norrie missed 5 of 74 returns, equivalent to a 93% returns made rate (Basilashvili had a 74% returns made rate against Norrie); consequently Basilashvili ended the match with a higher percentage of second serve points won than first serve points (58% to 60%).
By making as many returns as he could and taking on minimal risk, Basilashvili’s already relatively weak serve was completely taken out of the equation. It didn’t matter if it was a first or a second serve - it wasn’t winning Basilashvili the point outright.
Backhand to Forehand: Bad Strategy?
So far, so good - no need to worry about the Basilashvili serve. Now there was the matter of Basilashvili’s huge groundstrokes to deal with.
Norrie’s strategy was clear - take advantage of all three dimensions and hit low to the Basilashvili forehand, coaxing a Norrie backhand to Basilashvili forehand exchange that he was more than comfortable settling into2.
… but Basilashvili flew off to a set and a break lead? Was Norrie executing a duff strategy?
No! He was duffly3 executing a decent strategy!
Norrie wasn’t quite finding the width required to stop Basilashvili attacking and paid the price a few times. Combine this with nine unforced errors to zero winners or forced errors in the first set - Norrie wasn’t making much of a dent.
But he didn’t blink.
Cam knew he could execute better and stuck to his guns.
Eventually, the width on Cam’s backhand pinning him into a neutral position, Basilashvili overheated, hitting 15 forehand unforced errors in the third set alone. This, along with the removal of the serve, left Basilashvili stranded, winning only five points in the 0-4 shot range in the decider.
Where others might have resorted to plan B, Cam stubbornly stuck to plan A - the awareness he possessed to recognise he wasn’t executing to a high enough level is tennis intelligence at its finest.
Where to next for Cam Norrie?
Indian Wells Masters champion…
Wow!
Where does Cam Norrie go from here?
Well, he is a genuine contender for the ATP Finals. He’s only 160 points behind Hubert Hurkacz who is essentially eighth given Rafa won’t be in attendance. Though there are only quicker indoor tournaments left on the schedule, Norrie has proven us wrong more than once this year and could make some deep enough runs to see him playing in Turin.
Cam could even make the top 10 if he plays well enough next year. He’s had tough luck at the Slams this year (lost to Rafa twice, Federer and Alcaraz) but with a boosted ranking in hand, he could potentially make a deep enough run in Australia.
I’m getting ahead of myself. Cam Norrie is a Masters 1000 champion and that’s enough for now.
Throwback to this cute GIF to finish.
Well done Cam!
New balls please!
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Zero disrespect to Cam here - here are some of the players that haven’t/never won a Masters title, a reminder of just how difficult it is to win at this level.
Richard Gasquet, Matteo Berrettini, Andrey Rublev, Casper Ruud, Yevgeny Kafelnikov (former world #1), Fernando Gonzalez, Gilles Simon, Kei Nishikori, Milos Raonic, Gael Monfils, Mardy Fish, James Blake, Bernard Tomic.
Evidence of this? Just look at how many backhands Norrie hit in this match compared to his previous ones (thanks to Brain Game for this one).
Final v Basilashvili = 50% backhands (138 backhands / 136 forehands)
SF v Dimitrov = 41% backhands (147 forehands / 102 backhands)
QF v Schwartzman = 42% backhands (131 forehands / 93 backhands)
R16 v Paul = 32% backhands (244 forehands / 113 backhands)
R32 v Bautista Agut = 46% backhands (302 forehands / 259 backhands)
No such adverb exists I’m afraid… Sorry for massacring the English language once more.