It is always tricky meeting the neighbours for the first time.

You want to make a good impression but, on the other hand, you don’t want to appear too forward. You want to be friendly but you still want them to move their car from your driveway.

Cameron Norrie has been walking this social tightrope for the past few days as he settles into the Gentlemen Members’ Dressing Room – and when Mr Next Door turns out to be the defending champion, Novak Djokovic, he needed to get the introductions just right.

“They put my locker right next to Novak's,” he said on Monday. “I was asking him how Centre Court was, talking to him a little bit. Mostly all his stuff was in the way of mine. I was trying to get past him, trying to get to my locker.”

The new neighbours were both in action on neighbouring courts on Wednesday as Djokovic took on Thanasi Kokkinakis on Centre Court and Norrie faced Jaume Munar on No.1 Court.

And both won, Norrie coming through 6-4, 3-6, 5-7, 6-0, 6-2.

“I was so pleased to get through that,” Norrie said.

“Jaume put the ball in so many awkward parts of the court. I battled as hard as I could; I wasn’t playing my best and I managed to lock it in in the fourth and keep the momentum in the fifth.

“That match was exactly what I needed: I got a lot of rhythm out there.

"I think I was a little bit fortunate to win that first set – he was the better player. He was too good in the second and the third and I was getting a little bit frustrated.

"He was lobbing me and drop-shotting and passing me. It was really tough. But I managed to turn it around and I was really pleased with my level at the end. I’m just really pleased to get through.”

On paper, Norrie looked to be the heavy favourite in this encounter. The world No.12 and the No.9 seed here against the world No.71 whose Wimbledon record prior to this year was somewhat threadbare: played two, lost two.

This was a second round match, though; Munar had won on Monday (he beat Thiago Monteiro in straight sets) and, having discovered how it was done, he set about doing it again on No.1 Court on Wednesday.

He came racing out of the traps like a jet-propelled whippet.

The serve was huge – one clocked 135mph in the first set – and the groundstrokes were directed with pin-point accuracy. And he didn’t hang about in between rallies, either.

Norrie is of a similar mindset when he steps on court: he is there to play tennis not to maunder about picking at his racket strings or fiddling with his towel. He likes to get on with things.

As the first set reached the business end, the umpire whispered to both men that the shot clock appeared to have stopped working so could they try and be as timely as possible between points.

They accepted the instruction with a slight look of bewilderment: what are you telling us for? When did either of us ever need 25 seconds to take a ball and thump down a serve?

The first couple of sets boiled down to a matter of seconds, too. Munar made two volley errors – one straight at Norrie and one into the net – and that cost him a break of serve and, eventually, the set.

In the second set, Norrie played a couple of sloppy rallies and that cost him his serve and, eventually, the set.

Time was clearly of the essence: when they sat down at 5-2 in that second set, Munar asked the umpire how long they had been playing (obviously he had not noticed the clock on the two big scoreboards at either end of the court).

One hour, came the reply and the Spaniard looked suitably content. Did he have an appointment? Did he need to feed the parking meter? Clearly, he had things to do and places to go.

But Norrie had places to go, too: beyond the third round being the first destination on his list.

But the way the Spaniard was playing – and with the number of unforced errors Norrie was racking up – just reaching the third round was going to prove tricky.

Three consecutive breaks of serve at the start of the third set left Britain’s No.1 playing catch-up. He never quite managed it and the set was gone.

The momentum was about to change, though. Norrie was doing all the right things while, on the other side of the net, Munar was beginning to struggle.

The games whistled by and the Spaniard could not keep up.

He called for the trainer and took some electrolytes and fluid. At the end of the set, the trainer returned to massage Munar’s right thigh back into life.

Two games into the set and Munar was hobbling and a break down.

At the next change of ends, the trainer was back to work on both of the Spaniard’s thighs. But by now he had managed to break back and the legs were beginning to work again. Or they were until Norrie started pushing him from side to side to side.

It was enough to wear the Spaniard down and after three hours and 13 minutes, Norrie was heading back to the locker room to compare notes with his new neighbour.

Cup of tea and a bun, Novak? And any chance you could move your stuff away from my locker? Thanks ever so.

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