Cameron Norrie’s miserable run of form continued as he suffered a first-round exit at Queen’s Club, losing out to Milos Raonic in a three-set match.
The 28-year-old, who lost his British No 1 spot to Jack Draper over the weekend, had two match points in a marathon third-set tie-break but eventually succumbed to a 7-6 (8-6) 3-6 7-6 (11-9) defeat in two hours and 15 minutes.
Norrie has endured a difficult season – and a rotten few weeks – having lost eight of his last 14 matches, which includes a first-round exit at the French Open and defeat at Nottingham last week to world number 773 Jack Pinnington Jones.
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Big-serving Canadian Raonic may have slipped to 186 in the rankings after three years of injury problems, but he is a former world No 3 and was a Wimbledon finalist in 2016.
Norrie endured a set of the 33-year-old’s 140mph serves whizzing past him before pouncing in the opening tie-break, saving a set point before edging ahead.
Raonic immediately broke Norrie in the second set and closed it out comfortably to force a decider, which went all the way to another tie-break.
Norrie failed to convert two match points and Raonic, who hit 47 aces in total, put away his first to condemn the 2021 runner-up to an early exit.
Seventh-seed Rune crashes out at Queen’s
Holger Rune, a quarter-finalist at Wimbledon last year, had his tune-up for the tournament cut short as he was defeated 4-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-3 by Jordan Thompson in the first round at Queen’s.
Seventh seed Holger Rune suffered an early exit at Queen’s Club on Monday
The 21-year-old Dane, seeded seventh, secured the opening set with a first break of Thompson’s serve, but the world No 43 stepped up a gear to level the contest in a second-set tie-break, forcing a decider.
He then raced into a 3-0 lead and made no mistake to grab the win over Rune, who had made it to the semi-finals at Queen’s last year.
Thompson will next face the winner of Andy Murray’s first-round match-up with another Australian, Alexei Popyrin, on Tuesday.
Elsewhere, third seed Grigor Dimitrov defeated Adrian Mannarino in emphatic fashion, dropping only three games in a 6-1 6-2 hammering of the Frenchman.
American hopeful Frances Tiafoe was forced to retire early in the third set of his tournament opener against Australian Rinky Hijikata.
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