Barcelona Open 2024: Cameron Norrie vs Tomas Martin Etcheverry; Preview, Head-to-Head, Prediction

The British number one tennis star, Cameron Norrie, recently celebrated a major milestone in his career at the Barcelona Open. He defeated Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut in the R16 of this prestigious tournament. And with this victory, he has now managed to clinch his 200th tour win of his career. Surely, plenty more to come for the former number 8. But will it be 201 on Friday? Well, to get to that number, he has to defeat the current number 3 of Argentina, Tomas Martin Etcheverry.

Both of them have played some outstanding tennis so far this season. It will be interesting to see who gets the upper hand in this enticing contest at Pista Rafa Nadal. Let us take a look at some of the statistics before jumping in straight to the prediction for this faceoff.

Cameron Norrie vs Tomas Martin Etcheverry: Preview

It’s lefty vs righty! Cameron Norrie recently expressed his excitement to participate in this tournament and stated that he’s looking forward to winning the tournament this year. His best results this year came at the Rio Open, where he reached the SF. But after that, he failed to make his presence felt in the rest of the tournaments before landing in Barcelona. In the Barcelona Open, he won his previous match against Bautista by 6-4,6-3 in just 1 hour and 24 minutes.

Norrie hit 4 aces and committed 3 double faults in the entire match. That’s quite less if compared to his overall statistics for aces this year. His win percentage on the first serve was 73%, but it dropped down to 53% on the second serve. If we take a deeper dive into the rest of the stats for this match, Cameron Norrie’s record with break points in that match was 5/7, and he won 7 of his service games against the Spaniard. His numbers were quite impressive against Bautista.

Taking a closer look at his records for this season, Norrie has managed to hit a staggering 103 aces so far this season. However, he committed 45 double faults in total. His first serve win percentage for 2024 is 73%, while it’s around 52% on the second serve. What’s more interesting is, the British tennis star has won a staggering 82% of his service games and only 25% of his return games. Can the counterpuncher dismantle the Argentinian hurdle with his consistent but unorthodox ground-stroke playing abilities?

Tomas Martin Etcheverry, on the other hand, has already reached two QFs and one SF this year. His best performance was at the ATP Houston, where he got defeated by America’s Ben Shelton in a three-set thriller. However, in his last match, Etcheverry defeated another American, Brandon Nakashima, by 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-4 in the R16 of the Barcelona Open.

In that match, the Argentinian fired in 6 aces and committed a total of 3 double faults in the entire contest. He has also been incredibly dominant on serve; Etcheverry won 77% of his first serve. But it dropped down to 50% when it came to his second serve. However, his records with the breakpoints (2/12) weren’t too impressive. Etcheverry won 13 of his service games against the American. How many can he win against the British tennis star?

If we look at his record for the 2024 season, Tomas Martin Etcheverry has hit 84 aces and committed 14 doubles this season so far. His first-serve win percentage has notched up to 70% and his second-serve win percentage is currently 49%. Even though the Argentinian has an impressive record when it comes to winning service games, Etcheverry has 81% of his service games and 23% of his return games. So, this is going to be a really close fight, but who leads the H2H?

Norrie vs Etcheverry: Head-to-Head

This will be their second meeting on the tour. Previously, the two tennis stars had met each other at the QF of the Argentina Open in 2023. In that match, Cameron Norrie defeated Tomas Martin Etcheverry in front of his home crowd by 5-7, 6-0, and 6-3. Norrie hit 4 aces in that match, while Etcheverry fired six aces against the Brit. They were leveled at 2 when it came to the number of double faults in that match. But again, if we look at the first serve win percentage, Norrie had 64%, while Etcheverry had won 66% of it.

However, Norrie had the edge when it came to winning the second serve; he won 69% of his second serve compared to only 37% of Etcheverry. The British tennis star won 12 of his service games in that match, while the Argentinian won only 8 of his service games against Norrie. But who has the edge in this contest?

Prediction: Norrie to win in three sets

Tomas Martin Etcheverry is ranked number 30 in the world, while Cameron Norrie is ranked just 1 place behind the Argentinian at 31. Does it give an indication of how close this battle can get when these two step onto the court a few hours from now? Cameron Norrie’s win-loss record for this year is 10-7, while Etcheverry has a record of 8-9 this season.

But when it comes to the biggest stage on the clay courts, Norrie could only manage to reach the third round of the French Open three times in his career so far. The Argentinian has reached the QF of the French Open in 2023. This indicates, how difficult it is to pick one winner from this match. Norrie has reached the QF of this tournament in 2021 and 2022. However, he managed to go to the third round last year.

On the other hand, last year, Etcheverry reached the second round of the Barcelona Open. So, looking at all these records, the Brit looks slightly ahead of the Argentinian.