Wimbledon tennis: How Kiwi-Brit Cameron Norrie became the most enduring star in tennis

New Zealand-raised Brit Cameron Norrie celebrates winning a point. Photo / AP

When he takes to the grass at Wimbledon on Saturday morning, Kiwi-Brit Cameron Norrie will have an edge courtesy of his stamina which far outpaces his rivals. The 26-year-old's relentless game has taken him to the Wimbledon semifinals after a five-set showdown lasting three hours and 28-minutes against David Goffin.

Not that it mattered too much to the 9th seed, whose "main asset on the physical side is his endurance," according to his coach of five years, Facundo Lagones. "He has the endurance to do it for many hours and consecutive days, back to back to back."

From natural physicality to an intense training regime and sporting genes, here's how Norrie has become tennis' most enduring star.

Heart and lungs

Lagones says a key element to Norrie's success is his super-sized heart capacity. During one competition, a Catapult (a biometric measuring device resembling a crop top) found that he remained in the red zone — the highest level — for eight minutes. "Which is almost impossible. A normal person would die after two minutes in the red zone," says Lagones - which equates to around 180-200 beats per minute. This tranche burns the most calories — around 800 per hour — and means intense play can be maintained for longer.

Norrie knows his cardiac capacity sets him apart. "I have a pretty good engine," he told the Telegraph last year. "When my heart rate is so high, I seem to be able to play even better... I don't know exactly how I'm doing it, but it's a huge factor in why I'm doing so well."

Other elements of his anatomy also helped. Hospital tests after an accident revealed that the 6ft 2in player has deep sea diver-level lung capacity — larger, one of the technicians told him, than he had ever seen. "I've used it to my advantage ever since," Norrie says."

Any good cardiovascular training programme, especially doing vigorous training for tennis, improves heart and lung function dramatically," says trainer Matt Roberts. "Twenty to 30 seconds of intense activity is enough to up heart capacity and decrease the risk of dying."

Cameron Norrie. Photo / Getty

Lockdown training

After lockdown killed off the competitive season in March 2020, Norrie flew to his parents' home in Auckland, New Zealand, where he spent much of the pandemic. There, he ran 10km every day up steep hills, recording a personal best of 36 minutes and 45 seconds (and 17 minutes and 20 seconds for 5k), followed by beach swims. (The fastest 10k ever recorded is 26 minutes, with the average among recreational runners being at least twice that.)

Having run cross-country at school, "it has helped knowing I've kept that fitness up and have the legs in me when I'm playing".

Distance-running is atypical for tennis pros, according to Matt James, Emma Raducanu's former coach. Most sprint training occurs within three to five metres, as "that's what most tennis is played within. So you see a lot more changes of direction, accelerating, the ability to decelerate and being able to push off and recover."

Family matters

In Auckland, Norrie often ran with his mother, Helen — whose own marathon personal best is just outside the three-hour mark. "I've got some good genes as my mum is a good runner," Norrie says — making him "just an animal in that department," adds Lagones.

Helen describes herself as "semi-obsessed" with running. Squash, too, is her game — and that of her husband, David, who was the No 1 British university player, and represented the West of Scotland in junior tennis. This led Norrie to begin hitting tennis balls with a sawn-off squash racket at the age of six, while taking up rugby, cricket and football, too.

Overall fitness

James says a player's typical weekly regimen involves "stretching and mobility, and then your actual proper [tennis] sessions, then two or three conditioning sessions. You might get one cardio in, [and] a couple of core sessions." That cardio session can either be a distance run or shuttles, sprinting on and off for 20 seconds, he explains.

"Tennis is probably one of the most complete and all-round sports you can take up," says Roberts, as it requires "coordination, strength, stamina, a degree of endurance, mobility and flexibility". It also boosts "conditioning around your torso for your midriff".

Cameron Norrie during his Wimbledon quarter-final victory over David Goffin. Photo / AP

Laser focus

A moped crash during his time at university entirely altered Norrie's priorities. After drinking with friends at the Texas Christian University, where he was on a tennis scholarship, Norrie decided to drive home - and barely made it 20 metres before bashing his chin on the steering wheel. The gash required six stitches and, after failing a concussion test, he was put on a final warning from his then-coach.

"It hit me hard... I thought to myself, 'What the f*** am I doing?" From that point in 2016, "I decided I wanted to play pro tennis and made an oath not to waste one second on the court... I'm glad I had that moment early on in my career when it wasn't too late."

He remains fairly clean-living now, cycling everywhere, and eschewing alcohol after wins and losses.

Diet

Norrie has coeliac disease, so he eats a gluten-free diet beginning with eggs on toast each day, along with ProNutro cereal — a South African chocolate-flavoured wholegrain. Novak Djokovic, the reigning Wimbledon champion who Norrie faces overnight, is also gluten-free — a dietary decision he says changed his life.

Chocolate remains Norrie's "weakness", he has said, adding that if he swears off it completely, "I find myself fighting the temptation and then giving in... and then feeling bad about it." Instead, he practises moderation. "I try to make good decisions with my food all the time, [but] I also allow myself a treat."

In the run-up to the Californian Indian Wells Masters — known as the "fifth Grand Slam" — Norrie decided to make like previous tournament winners Dominic Thiem and Juan Martin del Potro and eat at the same restaurant every night. Norrie was told they had dined at Italian Mamma Gina, and he followed suit, eating the exact same dish on match days and "mixing it up" on those in between, "working my way through the menu".

Playing off

Compared to players past, Norrie perhaps resembles Bjorn Borg most closely. The Swedish former World No 1 had a resting heart rate of 35 beats per minute, and like the British No 1, plays a game that is steady, rather than spectacular.

Endurance training has its place in Norrie's game, James says. He "plays long matches, [so] he's going to run a longer distance than the big servers like Nick Kyrgios, who tries to finish his points a little bit quicker."

Lagones adds that Norrie "does a lot of fitness, probably more than anyone [in the tournament]". Thanks to his sessions with fitness coach Vasek Jursik, he is able to regain strength in late sets where competitors flag. "In the fifth set [of his match against Goffin] he actually looked more comfortable than at the beginning."