Never one to go quietly, Norrie mounted a spirited rearguard. He snatched the second set off the back of one unplayably fast return of serve, which whistled straight through Zverev’s forehand swish without any contact being made.

But Norrie had already spent nine sets and almost seven hours on the court in reaching this third-round appointment. His puppyish enthusiasm for chasing every ball down gradually faded as Zverev ground out a 7-5, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 victory in an economical 2hr 46min. It would have been even quicker, but for regular pauses to clean up the mess left by the seagulls which kept flying over the court.

“I thought the level was really good,” said Norrie. “First three sets, very good. There was maybe a slight dip in that third set, but it was kind of constant pressure, I thought, in all departments of the game.

“He was serving well, returning well, forehand, backhand, moving, and I had to really take a lot of risks to hang with him.

“And I think I can take a lot of confidence knowing I can play at that level with him, but I dropped off at the beginning of the fourth, for sure. That went very quickly.”