As Cameron Norrie steps out on to Centre Court against Novak Djokovic in front of his home crowd for the biggest match of his career, his first grand slam semi-final, it will mark another step in an arduous journey that has taken him across three countries and demanded sacrifices along the way.
The 26-year-old Norrie was born in South Africa, where his Scottish father and Welsh mother lived, but in his youth one of their neighbours was the victim of an armed carjacking. The incident frightened Norrie’s family and his parents decided to leave the country, moving to New Zealand. Norrie’s father considers it one of the best decisions they made.
“We lived in a sort of complex with barbed-wire electric fencing,” says David Norrie. “And so it was relatively secure, but there was an automated gate as you drove up. One night our neighbour was basically the victim of a carjacking. He had a gun put to his head and there was a baby in the back of the car. We sort of decided at that point that this was not the place to bring up kids and started making plans to emigrate.”
The end of the Norrie family’s lives in South Africa turned out to be a defining point in their son’s career. The sports-mad culture of New Zealand led him to pick up many different sports, which in turn moulded him into an accomplished athlete. Before he ever settled on one sport, he played football and table tennis, and he ran cross country.
But while it was an ideal environment to pick up sports, Norrie’s excellence meant that he soon outgrew those surroundings. At 16, Norrie embraced his family roots by moving to London. Norrie credits much of his success to the decision to leave his home in search of competition and knowledge that could aid his tennis.
“I think that’s one of the reasons why I’m here today, especially New Zealand with the lack of exposure with tournaments and everything, it was tough,” says Norrie. “I was playing a lot of other sports when I was younger. And obviously I needed to be somewhere that there were more tournaments and people knew a little bit more about guidance, and then getting better and being a professional player. So moving over at 16 was perfect for me.”
Norrie first moved to London, where he was coached by the LTA’s James Trotman and lived in accommodation at the National Tennis Centre surrounded by a number of younger players who took him under their wing and showed him the ropes. He was towards the beginning of that journey, jumping between juniors, where he reached a career high of No 10, and his first taste of professional tennis events, when Andy Murray won the Wimbledon title for the first time in 2013. “It was tough for me, you know, I think going from New Zealand and being in school and living a normal life to moving on the opposite side of the world and going fully into tennis was tough for me, I think it would be tough for anyone,” he says.
In those early days, Norrie was shy and unsure of his future, which led to his decision to go to college. “I definitely matured a lot from university. And I think I didn’t know really what I wanted to do with my tennis at that age, and I didn’t really know my level yet.”
It was not until the early lockdowns of Covid that Norrie found his way back to New Zealand for any lengthy period. He spent the initial months of Covid lockdown with his parents in Auckland, running constantly when allowed outside. After he resumed on the tour, they had not seen each other in person. Norrie’s parents only rejoined their son a few months ago in Rome during the clay season. While they have spent the past few months absorbed in his tennis from the front rows, they will eventually return home and continue to follow from a considerable distance.
“You’ve just got to sit there and absorb the highs and lows,” says David Norrie, describing what it feels like to follow their son from New Zealand. “At home the timezone is not always favourable. But even when it is, I’d almost rather be doing something else and then come back to it, you know: ‘What was the score?’ later.”
