Can Norrie pull off the impossible?

Losing to Baez indoors would be quite an achievement, but the Brit is capable of it!

Alright, there’s still a long way to go, but if Norrie plays as badly as he did against Berrettini, I think Báez has a chance to snag a set! Why did Norrie play so poorly in Vienna? He started the match really well, then got reeled back in, and from that point on he played not to lose, just pushing the ball and waiting for an error. He held back from going after neutral balls and preferred to wait for a mistake by pinning Berrettini on the backhand side—not a bad strategy, but you have to fully commit when you get on the front foot!! That said, you have to put yourself in his shoes: the match was tight and he couldn’t force himself out of that weird match pattern, and on the other side there’s Berrettini serving rockets, so it wasn’t easy either. Before that we saw a good Norrie, and that’s why he should play well again in this first round. He got lucky with the draw facing Báez; the Argentine has a dreadful indoor record and he’s basically won almost no matches off clay this season. His only wins on hard came against players who were just coming back—it’s so thin that you really can’t say he’ll play well tomorrow and spring an upset, but still… I’m thinking it’s the last Masters 1000 of the year in Paris, there’s a certain motivation there, and the slower conditions might be enough to see him play a bit looser this time? He could get in Norrie’s head if he manages to make him play enough..