“In some ways at the beginning of the match I felt he was a little better than me,” Nadal said. “He was winning his serves easily and my serves, I was suffering a little more. But I was a player who made the break.”
Norrie saved a break point in the opening game of second set and turned the tables on Nadal from there, winning a highlight reel-worthy point to consolidate a 4-1 lead.
“I played a bad game and he played a good game,” Nadal said flatly. “But I said, ‘Ok, it’s 4-1; it could be 4-1 for me too, so I just need to keep doing the things that I’m doing, probably play more aggressive with my backhand, which I think at the end worked a little bit better and that makes the difference.”
Facing the prospect of a final set, Nadal battled back with a break of his own, jamming Norrie off the backhand side to even proceedings at four games apiece.
Though Norrie snapped a run of 12 straight points against him, Nadal was undaunted and nabbed a fourth straight game with a powerful backhand putaway. Barreling towards the finish line, Nadal secured victory with an ace to book a quarterfinal clash with No. 4 seed Mariano Navone.
“He’s a player who is playing so well this year, winning a lot of matches, especially on clay. In the quarterfinals of such a historic event like Båstad, you can’t expect easy opponents. I’m just trying to improve a little bit every day. I know it’ll be a tough one but I hope to play good tennis and give all of myself.”
