A big turnaround in the final of the clay court tournament in Rio de Janeiro. Cameron Norrie takes on Carlos Alcaraz

For the second time in one week, two of the best players in recent clay-court events in South America ran into each other. Carlos Alcaraz was coming back from injury in style. But his quest for a second straight triumph was spoiled by Britain’s Cameron Norrie, who had to turn around an unfavourable scoreline in the final.

Carlos Alcaraz (2nd) missed out on the end of last season, when he was due to make his first career appearance at the Tournament of Champions. An abdominal muscle injury was to blame for everything, which also deprived the winner of last year’s US Open of his world number one position.

After missing the Australian Open, the still only 19-year-old Spaniard returned to the match carousel last week at the 250 tournament in Buenos Aires. There he easily reached the final, where he faced Britain’s Norrie (13th), whom he easily defeated in two sets.

A week later, the whole scenario repeated itself like a carbon copy and both men made it through to the final. Of course, the young Spaniard entered it as the favourite. For Norrie, the switch to clay was more of a surprise, as he is defending his final on the hard surface in Acapulco in just a few days.

In the first set, the score was even for a long time, until in the eleventh game of the first set came the first converted break point from Alcaraz, who managed to complete the first set at 7::5.

And Alcaraz also started the second set well. He took a quick 3:0 lead and things were not looking good for the Brit. But then, surprisingly, the Spaniard started to mess up a lot, he was not good at shortening the game and there were a lot of unforced errors.

Norrie got to 4::4 in the second set and at this point the score started to tilt to his side – 4::6. Alcaraz looked very tired and had to have the hamstring on his right leg bandaged.

Although the Spaniard did not give up the match, he was leading in the third set, this time with a one break advantage 2::0, but once again Norrie’s tremendous fighting spirit showed and he leveled the score and even took the lead 2::3 and the advantage of his own serve.

Despite the aggressive play of Alcaraz, the world number two struggled and tried everything possible to somehow turn the match around. However, the British player was very patient in fending off all attacks and reliably held his serve.

The final break of the angry Alcaraz, who even slammed his racket on the court, came in the eleventh game. Norrie converted a break point on his fourth attempt and then managed to bring the match to a victorious end – 5::7.

Norrie was smiling after the match and celebrated his eighteenth win of the year very emotionally. “It’s emotional for me, especially on this surface where I don’t feel completely comfortable. I have already lost two finals this year and I had to work hard for this one,” he said.

In Acapulco, where he defends last year’s final, he will face Frenchman Mannarino (62nd). Alcaraz will face American McDonald (49th) in the first round of the same tournament.

Source: ATP