Cameron Norrie is usually Mr Reliable, but his eight-match winning streak was cut short at Indian Wells by sharp-shooting American Frances Tiafoe.

The Californian desert is meant to be Norrie's happy place: the slow courts and balmy conditions suit his game and it is where he scored his biggest career title in 2021. But Norrie's quarter-final performance was uncharacteristically sloppy, marred by clusters of errors which Tiafoe pounced upon to reach his first ever Masters 1000 semi-final.

Tenth seed Norrie was the last Briton left in the draw and the in-form player moving into the tie, with a 21-3 win-loss record for the year. He never looked comfortable against 16th-ranked Tiafoe though, and was sub-par in the windy and briefly rainy conditions.

Norrie and Tiafoe had played just six points before a spot of unseasonal drizzle forced them back to their chairs. After fervent attempts by the ball kids to towel-dry the court, they were given the green light to play on seven minutes later, but Tiafoe decided he was not comfortable competing on the surface and sat back down. So continued an awkward game of musical chairs: the match restarted, only for a few moments of spitting rain to put Tiafoe on edge and back in his seat just three points later. 

On the other side of the court Norrie looked keener to play on throughout nearly 20 minutes of total stoppage, but once things eventually got going it was Tiafoe that took charge.

In the seventh game, he made a brave play, taking the return early and attacking the net to break Norrie, and the Briton was never able to properly recover. At one point in the second set, Norrie was winning just 13 per cent of points on his second serve and he hit 28 unforced errors over the 98-minute match. He denied Tiafoe's first attempt to serve it out but succumbed to a 6-4, 6-4 scoreline in the end. 

Elsewhere the WTA "formally warned" Russia's Anastasia Potapova that it was "not acceptable" to wear the shirt of a Russian football team, after she was pictured wearing a Spartak Moscow shirt at Indian Wells. 

Earlier this week world No 1 Iga Swiatek had criticised Potapova and called on the WTA to act. In a statement, the WTA said: "We do not expect to see any reoccurrence of this in the future."

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