Britain’s number one Cameron Norrie has beaten Marton Fucsovics to set up an Italian Open round of 16 meeting with world number one Novak Djokovic.
Norrie went 6-2 7-6 (7-4) in a game that came after Saturday’s rain breaks in Rome.
Norrie had led by a set and 5-1 but was caught by the Hungarian before digging deep again to win.
Djokovic defeated Grigor Dimitrov 6-3 4-6 6-1 after seeing a 4-2 second set lead disappear.
World number one Iga Swiatek advanced to the knockout stages of the women’s event, but sixth seed Coco Gauff was beaten.
Norrie, the 13th seed, looked solid from the start against his opponent, ranked 92nd in the world, and broke for an early 3-1 advantage and built on that, breaking again in game eight.
As the game went on, Fucsovics struggled on his serve and Norrie took advantage twice to move up 5-1 and in sight of the win.
However, out of nowhere, the British number one began to struggle as the Hungarian staged a mini-recovery, breaking Norrie twice as he served for the game and saving five match points – four on his own serve – on the way to level it to 5. -5.
Norrie kept his composure to go up 6-5 but his opponent equalized again to force the tie-break.
Although he lost the first two points and then fell 3-1, Norrie began to show the aggression that had been lacking in the latter part of the set. He seemed to find another speed and led 6-3 before winning on his seventh match point.
