Cameron Norrie will take to Center Court at Wimbledon later on Friday for the biggest match of his career – a semi-final against six-time champion Novak Djokovic.
Norrie fought back to beat David Goffen in a thrilling five-set quarter-final on Tuesday in front of 11,000 fans, including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
The old joke goes “Andy Murray is British when he wins and Scottish when he loses”, but what fate awaits Norrie, the British number one whose father is from Glasgow.
What is Nori’s upbringing?
Norrie lived in four different countries by his early 20s. He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa to a Welsh mother and Scottish father before moving to New Zealand aged just three.
His first experience with tennis was in the driveway of the family home, hitting a ball with a chopped squash racket.
But during his teenage years he became world number ten for juniors – competing in several tournaments and touring Europe when he was 15.
His British heritage put him on the radar of the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) and, sensing a lack of support from the New Zealand federation, Norrie made the decision to move to London at the age of 16, switching allegiance in 2013.
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He lived there for three years while his parents stayed in Auckland before moving to the US state of Texas for university.
He became the top-ranked college tennis player while studying sociology at Texas Christian University.
Norrie interrupted his studies in 2017, when he was 20, to turn pro during the grass court season of the ATP tournament. He then settled back in London where he has been practicing ever since.
What nationality is Nori considered to be?
“If you hear my dad speak, he has a dirty Scottish accent. It’s great, I love it,” Norrie said last year.
His father, David Norrie, is a microbiologist from Glasgow who traveled to Wimbledon from New Zealand to watch his son in action, along with Cameron’s mother Helen.
Mr Norrie said he struggled to watch his son’s final points from Tuesday’s quarter-final, and Cameron also revealed his matches were “stressful” for his parents.
He said: “I think every game I’ve won this week my mum has cried.
“The matches are getting bigger and the moments are getting more special. I think they’re just really happy for me that I’m doing something that I love and winning is just a bonus. I think it was probably pretty stressful for them today.
More recently, when asked how he feels about being British, Norrie said: “It’s quite interesting, my background is obviously from different places.
“But I live here, I’m based here – it feels good to be back here training with the younger Brits.”
When asked if he was a fixture in the British game, he said: “I feel comfortable doing it and I really enjoy playing at this level.
“If I can help any of the younger guys, there’s a big group of guys coming in with a lot of talent, a lot of chances to make the top 100. I can be that guy to lead them and show them I can do it .”
Norrie represents Scotland against England at the Battle of the Brits exhibition event in Aberdeen just before Christmas, where he will compete in the same team as Andy and Jamie Murray.
And in the LTA Scotland rankings, the number one county is listed as Scotland West.
How is his career progressing?
Norrie broke into the top 100 within a year of turning pro.
He made one of the most impressive Davis Cup debuts of all time in February 2018 when he came back from two sets down to beat then-world number 23 Roberto Bautista Agut on clay in Spain.
Norrie reached his first ATP final in Oakland the following year, but 2021 was the season in which he unexpectedly established himself at the very top of the game.
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He won 52 singles matches at the tournament level, reaching six finals and winning two, including at Indian Wells, one of the biggest tournaments on the ATP Tour.
From 74th in the rankings at the start of last season, Norrie finished it on the threshold of the top ten and qualified for the ATP Finals as an alternate.
Sustaining such an incredible season is extremely difficult, but after losing his first four matches of the season, Norrie continued to build, winning his third and fourth ATP Tour titles in Delray Beach and Lyon and breaking into the top ten for the first time in April.
At this year’s Wimbledon, Norrie defeated Spaniards Pablo Andujar and Jaume Munnar, as well as Americans Steve Johnson and Tommy Paul.
Love games
Nori has several loves off the court. One is Rangers and the other is American entrepreneur Louise Jacoby, 32, whom he met in a bar in New York three years ago.
She has traveled the world to support Nori since they started dating.
Ms Jacobi, who has a degree in fine arts from the University of Michigan, revealed she was “just not interested” in the 26-year-old because he was always on tennis tours.
But Norrie’s “perseverance” and the fact that he did an “amazing job of keeping in touch” even when they were thousands of kilometers apart allowed their relationship to flourish.
In October 2019, Ms Jacobi’s former employer went bankrupt and she lost her job – so Nori invited her to join him at the Erste Bank Open in Vienna, Austria.
“When he asked me, I thought, ‘I guess this guy doesn’t live a normal life, and it’s not like I can meet him on the street and go to dinner together,'” she recalled.
“So I went on this trip and I was only supposed to be in Vienna for five days and it went really well. I had a great time with him.
“In a weird way I was like ‘thank god they laid me off when I did’ because we were able to build the foundation of our relationship before Covid hit.”
When asked what Norrie is like off the court, Ms Jacobi said: “He’s quite similar to him on the court, in the sense that he’s very calm, very level-headed, easy-going and takes things as they come.
“That’s pretty much what he is.”
His other romance is with Rangers, with the Ibrox club saying they would be delighted to welcome Norrie and his father to a game at Ibrox this season.
Nori appeared keen to take up the offer of a trip to watch Giovani van Bronckhorst’s side play, replying: “I like it, I’ll definitely do it.”
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