Norrie to face Alcaraz in Indian Wells last eight

Great Britain’s Cameron Norrie will meet world number one Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals at Indian Wells.

Norrie is yet to drop a set at this year’s tournament and backed up his win over sixth seed Alex de Minaur in the previous round with an impressive 6-4 6-2 victory over world number 117 Rinky Hijikata in one hour and 16 minutes.

Later on Wednesday, Alcaraz defeated Norwegian 13th seed Casper Ruud 6-1 7-6 (7-2).

Norrie, 30, broke Australian qualifier Hijikata’s serve in the opening game of the match and, after wrapping up the first set, broke twice more in the second to race into the last eight.

On his own serve, the 27th seed faced only one break point in the match.

Norrie has a good record at the hard-court event in California.

This is his eighth appearance in the men’s singles and it is the fourth time that he has made it to at least the quarter-final stage.

He won the title in 2021, but lost in the last eight in the following two years.

Next up for Norrie is the formidable challenge of Alcaraz, who is yet to lose a match in 2026.

Norrie told BBC Sport he has gained confidence from his results at Indian Wells so far – and also from an “unreal” pre-tournament practice session with world number two Jannik Sinner.

“Since I arrived here, I have been practising unreal,” he said.

“I had a practice with Jannik Sinner, it was my first practice here. We had the centre court and it was meant to be two hours, but we were both having an unreal practice and both enjoying it.

“He’s like, ‘No, come on man, let’s keep going’. I had something to do for the tournament and he had a photoshoot to do, and he was just like, ‘Cancel that’.

“I had to text my agent and postpone my thing and we kept going. I think we played about three hours and 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, British duo Jack Draper and Sonay Kartal are also scheduled to play their last-16 matches later.

Draper, the defending champion at Indian Wells, will face Serbia’s 24-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic.