Familiar face standing in Cameron Norrie’s way of Wimbledon quarter-finals

Cameron Norrie must hope he has not helped contribute to his own downfall as he prepares to face Tommy Paul for a place in the Wimbledon quarter-finals.

Ninth seed Norrie is Paul’s fourth consecutive left-handed opponent and he has been practising with the American this tournament to prepare him for the contests.

Now the two, who are good friends, will do battle for real as both look to continue career-best grand slam runs.

Norrie found himself as the highest-ranked player left in his quarter of the draw as early as the second round and, after needing five sets to see off Jaume Munar, steamed through a clash with Steve Johnson on Friday.

Norrie will be the favourite again on Sunday but Paul, the 30th seed, has been having a strong grass-court season and the British number one will certainly not be looking too far ahead.

“The draw still has good players in it,” he said. “It’s nice to make the second week.

“There’s no easy guys out there. Tommy won really comfortably (against Jiri Vesely in round three). He seems really locked in, and he really likes the grass. It’s going to be really tough regardless if the draw is open or not. At the end of the day, I’ll take it again.

“We’ve actually practised maybe two or three times already here at Wimbledon. We know each other’s game very well. Good friends off the court. But we’re going to both leave that aside and it’s going to be a battle, for sure.”

For the first time this tournament, there were no British singles winners on Saturday, with Katie Boulter and Liam Broady both seeing their fine runs end.

Heather Watson is also through to the fourth round, though, and will play for the seventh day in a row.

The 30-year-old’s first two singles matches were both played over two days