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Britain’s Cameron Norrie beat Jozef Kovalik 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 in the first round of the Swedish Open.<\/b><\/p>\n
A tight first set in which neither player managed to engineer a break point on the clay went to a tiebreak.<\/p>\n
Norrie took a 5-3 lead after steering a shot down the line from a Kovalik drop shot and then won his next two service points to take the tie-break and first set.<\/p>\n
The Briton was 40-15 up on the Slovak’s serve in the second and sixth games of the second set but failed to take any of those four break points as his opponent resolutely held.<\/p>\n
However, Norrie turned up the pressure at 5-4 when Kovalik was serving to stay in the match and, after going 40-0 up, took his second match point to claim victory in one hour 35 minutes. <\/p>\n
“It was quite difficult. I was pretty nervous at the beginning, I’d not played much on clay coming straight out of Wimbledon,” said Norrie.<\/p>\n
“It was not easy and I thought I managed my serve and competed really well.<\/p>\n
“I served unbelievably well in the tie break so that helped get me through it. I played one of the best games of the match at the end.”<\/p>\n
Norrie will play Rafael Nadal in the second round if the Spanish great beats Leo Borg of Sweden.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n