Tuesday 5 July 2022 10:45 PM Norrie puts us in dreamland: British No. 1 bounds into Wimbledon semi-final ... trends now
Dare we dream? Should we hope? Can we really put ourselves through the agony of yet another Wimbledon fantasy? Silly question.
So there we are, on Day 9, pinning all our hopes on Cameron Norrie’s shoulders as he bounds about Court One, battling it out with David Goffin – the 31-year-old Belgian wild card – in the hope of being the first British man in the semis since 2016.
But hang on a minute. Cameron who, I hear you ask? To be fair – despite being ranked number 12 in the world and our Number One, we’ve been on a steep learning curve when it comes to our brand-new hero this week.
Cameron Norrie stood victorious as he made it through to Friday's semi-final after defeating David Goffin on Court One. He is the first British man to reach the Wimbledon singles semi-finals since 2016
We’ve learnt that his nickname is Nozzer. That, when excitable, his fans like to cheer: ‘Norrie, Norrie, Norrie, Oi, Oi, Oi!’ That he would have been a cricketer if ‘all that fielding’ hadn’t been so boring. That he was once a party animal – and ‘not Christian at all’ – as a student at Texas Christian University, until he drunkenly smashed up both his motorbike and his chin and finally stopped enjoying life so much and buckled down to his tennis.
And also, that the reason we’ve never heard of him is because he’s spent most of his 26 years living in South Africa, New Zealand and the United States (which, presumably, is why his accent veers all over the place). But Cameron’s mother hails from Wales, his father from Scotland – where Norrie supports Rangers FC but doesn’t like the weather – and he has a British passport and a flat in south-west London. Which is good enough for us.
Frankly, at this stage in the tournament and with no homegrown talent left to cheer for, he could have grown up on the moon and we’d still be calling him British. So come on, Norrie, Nozzie, Cam, whatever…
