London [UK], July 9 (ANI): Cameron Norrie walked off Centre Court at Wimbledon on Friday having lost to Novak Djokovic in his first major semi-final.
Although the Briton has plenty to be proud of after a remarkable semi-final, the experience has left him hungry for more.
“Great experience. I can take a lot of confidence from it. To reach the semis, reach the Friday of the second week, is pretty sick. But I think for me, I want to go [for] more and I want to do more of that and go one further and try to win a Slam,” Norrie said in a post-match press conference.
“A lot of firsts for me this week, a lot of good experiences. Hopefully, I can take them in my stride. I think looking, compared to Novak, I think it was just the level of execution from him today was better than mine. His level of focus, and the way he handled his service games were better than mine. That was the difference,” he added.
For a moment, it seemed Norrie was in a good position to push for his first major final after storming through the first set 6-2. But Djokovic rebounded with devastating form through the rest of the match to triumph after two hours and 35 minutes.
“I think I played okay. I just made a lot of returns. I hit the spots well on my serve. As I said, it was the biggest match of my career. I think it was a six out of 10 sets. I think I was running a lot, but a lot of balls in the court,” Norrie said.
“I felt like he was a bit nervous. He wasn’t serving as well as I’ve seen him serve. I was winning all the rallies and winning all the longer points. It was a solid set,” he added.
“I knew that I had to keep raising the level to have a chance. In a semi-final, my first Grand Slam, when you take the set 6-2, you take that. Yeah, it was a good start, but it wasn’t enough,” the British player said.
One of the best parts of the experience for Norrie was having the British fans behind him. The 26-year-old was the last British singles player remaining, and they tried to help push him all the way.
“Everyone got behind me. The atmosphere was incredible. Especially serving that came out against [David] Goffin to make my first semi-final was pretty crazy,” Norrie said.
“I think it’s all happened very quickly. I’m going to have a lot of time to reflect on everything. But it’s tough right now to think about it too much. Obviously just getting knocked out. A lot of good learning for me,” he added. (ANI)
