French Open 2025: Cameron Norrie tops Jacob Fearnley amid UCL fireworks

PARIS — Cameron Norrie booked his place in the fourth round of the French Open after coming through an all-British clash with Jacob Fearnley at Roland Garros on Saturday.

The win marked Norrie’s best return in the French Open as he defeated Fearnley 6-3, 7-6 (1), 6-2 but the match was a unique affair as it played out against the backdrop of constant noise from nearby fireworks as Paris prepared for the Champions League final.

The match was played on Court Simonne-Mathieu, a court to the side of the Roland Garros grounds closest to Parc des Princes. Packed into the Parc were 48,000 Paris Saint-Germain supporters waiting eagerly for their Champions League final with Inter Milan to start. But the sound of fireworks was already peppering the air as Fearnley and Norrie walked out to start their third round match, some three hours out from kick off in the football in Munich.

– French Open daily schedule, how to watch, prize money
– How British players are faring at Roland Garros
– How the French Open braced for a Champions League final schedule clash

“I didn’t panic at all when he broke me both times,” Norrie said. “He dropped a bit in the tie-break. The toughest part was managing the fireworks next door for both of us. Looking forward to the match and it would be nice to see PSG win it.”

From sitting inside the arena, some fireworks were being let off nearby, others were further away, but it no doubt impacted the players.

It was an all-British match, but also an all-TCU affair. For Fearnley, this matched the further he’s gone in a Grand Slam — having reached the third round of the Australian Open earlier this year, but it’s Norrie who progressed through.

He will play Novak Djokovic in the fourth round.

So it was against this backdrop that the all-British tie was played in Paris. Norrie started well with a hold to love against Fearnley, who looked to be struggling with nerves in the opening exchanges. Both held their next service games, but it was Norrie who broke first, with Fearnley’s serve malfunctioning to give Norrie a 3-1 lead.

Fearnley was struggling to get close to Norrie’s serve, winning just one point on it across Norrie’s first four service games, but Fearnley held serve in the eighth after a lengthy battle at deuce. Norrie drew two set points in the next game, but uncharacteristic errors crept in — heading into this game, Norrie had made just three unforced errors to Fearnley’s 21 — but he held firm to take the first set 6-3.

Fearnley’s erratic serve continued to cause him trouble in the second set, and Norrie eventually broke him in the third game to take control. All the while, fireworks both near and far continued to sound out over the top of the grounds.

Both players continued without complaining — they could’ve pushed for the match to be moved to a quieter end of the grounds — as the noise of fireworks reverberated around the arena.

“Actually I was putting my bag down, and the umpire said, ‘Yeah, there’s just a couple of fireworks. We’ll just play on. No worries,'” Norrie told a postmatch news confernece.

“I was thinking it was just going to be, like, a few of them in the warmup. It was at the most random times. It would go away for kind of 15, 20 minutes and then come back.”

“I think I was 6-5 serving and about to hit a second serve, and then suddenly one literally felt like it was right next to me went off. I had to stop.

“It was another factor pretty difficult for both of us to be playing with that going on. It felt like it was happening within the stadium.”

Meanwhile, the tennis continued.

Fearnley saved break points in the seventh game and then broke Norrie to tie things up 5-5. But Fearnley’s relief proved to be short-lived as Norrie broke him in the next game, only for Fearnley to break back straight away, taking things to a tiebreak. Norrie dominated that, as unforced errors crept into Fearnley’s game and the more experienced Brit closed out the set.

Norrie then started the third set in the same way, breaking Fearnley in the fourth game with his unforced error count up to 66. Norrie then broke him again in the sixth to give him a chance to serve out the match.

Fearnley broke back to reduce the gap, but Norrie soon had two match points on Fearnley’s serve, taking the second to book his spot in the fourth round.