Is Cam Norrie on upset alert ahead of match with Alexander Shevchenko at US Open Tuesday?

It wasn’t that long ago that it looked like Cam Norrie was on his way to a monster season in 2023. The 28-year-old won 21 of his first 24 matches, made it to three finals and won one of them -- against Carlos Alcaraz.

But since then Norrie has been trending down and things have gotten pretty ugly for the Brit over the past couple of months.

Norrie could have really used a soft draw in Round 1 of the US Open but the tennis gods had other ideas, setting him up with a tricky showdown with up-and-coming Russian talent Alexander Shevchenko on Tuesday.

The oddsmakers still make Norrie a -450 favorite over Shevchenko but there’s reason to believe that this could be a tricky opening match for the World No. 16.

At his best, Norrie is a machine. He may not have overpowering tools in his locker, but the former Wimbledon semifinalist is a swift mover on the court and rarely makes mistakes, which adds up to an elite rally tolerance. Norrie will keep the ball in play until his opponent gets frustrated and makes an unforced error. Those qualities would make a talented-but-raw player like Shevchenko a great matchup for Norrie when he’s on form.

But Norrie has not been at his best lately. The former TCU Horned Frog was upset by Chris Eubanks in the third round at Wimbledon and has lost all three matches he’s played on hard courts since the tour changed surfaces. And while a couple of those defeats came against strong opposition (Alex de Minaur and Gael Monfils), he also lost to World No. 129 Aleksandar Kovacevic.

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While Norrie has struggled during the North American hard-court swing, Shevchenko has showed some impressive flashes, including collecting wins over higher-ranked players like Sebastian Korda and Marton Fucsovics.

There is some concern that Shevchenko is dealing with something after he pulled out of a match in Winston-Salem, but I’m leaning into that being more of being overly cautious than anything major. Plenty of players wind up pulling out of the lead-up tournaments before the US Open as a precaution and to make sure they’re as close to 100% for the year’s final Grand Slam.

Nonetheless, this price is still big enough to get me invested. Norrie has been in poor form for quite some time now and has the look of a player who just needs the season to end. I’ll back the young Russian to be able to rely on his serve to get enough cheap points to make this match a lot tighter than the odds imply.

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