{"id":419040,"date":"2025-09-12T17:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T17:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/419040\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T17:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T17:57:09","slug":"davis-cup-2025-cameron-norrie-gives-great-britain-a-1-0-lead-over-poland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/419040\/","title":{"rendered":"Davis Cup 2025: Cameron Norrie gives Great Britain a 1-0 lead over Poland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">With Poland missing their top two singles players &#8211; Hubert Hurkacz and Kamil Majchrzak &#8211; Fery&#8217;s opponent Pieczkowski is their highest-ranked player.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That meant Britain were heavy favourites coming into the tie, which was compared to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/tennis\/articles\/cn82xd1yd1jo\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a Premier League team facing a non-league side in the FA Cup.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But captain Leon Smith warned that it was not necessarily that straightforward. And so it proved as Norrie made hard work of his match against 19-year-old Berkieta, ranked 511 places below him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Norrie was immediately on the back foot, saving two break points in his opening service game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A tricky set followed with neither player conjuring further break point opportunities and the Pole forcing a tie-break.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Norrie saved two set points before missing three of his own in an error-strewn tie-break but a double fault from Berkieta then Norrie&#8217;s pinpoint serve from sealed the 30-year-old the opener.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Norrie then showed his experience in set two as Berkieta&#8217;s belief and level trailed off and an early break of serve was enough for Norrie to secure victory and Britain&#8217;s first point of the tie.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A torn bicep and illness had prevented former top-10 player Norrie playing Davis Cup since the 2023 quarter-final with Serbia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He has already played 22 tournaments this year but said playing for his country is &#8220;one of my favourite weeks&#8221; of the year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Britain lost 3-2 in Japan in the first round of this year&#8217;s Davis Cup, and so must win this tie to maintain their status among the elite. Defeat would mean a February play-off, which could result in relegation to World Group 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Poland missing their top two singles players &#8211; Hubert Hurkacz and Kamil Majchrzak &#8211; Fery&#8217;s opponent Pieczkowski&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-419040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115192623563734099","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}