In a surprising result on Sunday, Cameron Norrie of Great Britain defeated Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz 5-7, 6-4, 7-5 in the final of the 2023 Rio Open in Brazil. This was Norrie’s fifth career ATP title.
In Sunday’s final, Norrie had more break point opportunities than Alcaraz. The British national actually had 16 compared to only nine for Alcaraz. With the more opportunities, Norrie was able to break Alcaraz more times (six compared to five).
The win for Norrie was surprising when you consider the fact that Alcaraz was seeded first in Rio and is second in the world only behind 2023 Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic of Serbia. Alcaraz, who won a major final himself last year at the United States Open, had a dominant 2022 tennis season on clay. He won the Rio Open, Barcelona Open and Madrid Open leading up to the 2022 French Open.
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This was Norrie’s fifth ATP tournament win and first at the 500 point level. The four previous titles came at the 2021 Los Cabos Open in Mexico (250 point level) where he beat American Brandon Nakashima in the final, 6-2, 6-2, 2021 Indian Wells (1000 point level) where Norrie beat Nikoloz Basilshvilli of Georgia in the final, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1, the 2022 Delray Beach Open (250 point level) where Norrie beat Reilly Opelka of the United States in the final, 7-6, 7-6, and the 2022 Lyon Open in France (250 point level), where Norrie beat Alex Molcan of Slovakia 6-3, 6-7, 6-1.
Norrie becomes the first British player to ever win the Rio Open. This was actually the second straight week he faced Alcaraz in an ATP final. Last week Alcaraz beat Norrie 6-3, 7-5 in the Argentina Open in Buenos Aires.
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