There was a disappointing end to the doubles quarter-final in Vienna when Cameron Norrie had to retire due to more of the problems with his right leg that we saw yesterday. He had a medical time-out at the change of ends after the third game but, by the time they stopped four games later, he was down to not much more than a crawl.
Jackson Withrow served first when he and Nathaniel Lammons played Norrie and Tommy Paul, the highlight being an incredible stop volley from Lammons where the ball jumped up, rather than down, but neither of his opponents was close enough to take advantage of the extra half-second that the ball was in the air. He followed that by hitting a fabulous cross-court forehand return off Norrie’s first serve, but the only other real highlight shot came when Paul was serving the fourth game. There were two good rallies, and Norrie ended the second one with a fabulous angled backhand volley. He was forced to send his next backhand volley long, creating the only break point of the match, but a great serve from Paul saw Withrow’s return go just over the baseline, and Lammons’ return of the deciding point went into the net at a huge rate of knots.
The remaining games all went with serve as well, so Lammons and Withrow were leading 4-3 when the match finished after 22 minutes. Hopefully Norrie is just being extremely cautious in the leadup to the Paris Masters next week.