ritish hopes ended within the singles on Friday when Cameron Norrie was outclassed 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 by Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti.
The British No1 had gone into the third-round tie the marginal underdog regardless of being three locations greater ranked at 14th within the match.
And after such a robust begin towards Lucas Pouille within the previous spherical, he by no means actually obtained getting in his bid to arrange a possible last-16 encounter towards world No1 and match favorite Carlos Alcaraz.
In distinction, Musetti, who had beforehand pushed Novak Djokovic to 5 units on the 2021 French Open, had conceded simply 11 video games in six earlier units.
Norrie was damaged in his opening service sport, which set the tone in a completely one-sided set towards an opponent who had overwhelmed him after they final confronted one another in Barcelona final month.
Again then, Norrie had picked up the opening set earlier than being regularly unpicked by Musetti and shedding in three units.
On Friday, he was on the backfoot all through. He quashed one thing nearing a wipeout with a fightback within the third set, recovering from a break all the way down to degree to briefly take the ascendancy in that set.
However it was too shortlived as Musetti broke him once more and, within the course of, Norrie suffered a hat-trick of third-round French Open exits.
Norrie apart, it was a reasonably limp exhibiting from the British singles contingent. Together with Brits in qualifying, they boasted simply eight wins from 13 gamers on a floor the place GB gamers have habitually struggled.
