The feelgood factor surrounding Willis at Wimbledon has caught the eye of his next opponent Roger Federer, in a year when match fixing and doping scandals have damaged tennis’ reputation.
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He himself described his presence at Wimbledon as “ridiculous” and “surreal”. Willis won three matches there, then another three in qualifying to get into the main draw. Merely qualifying for the main draw is the stuff of fairy tales.
Just winning the first-round match has guaranteed 25-year-old Willis £50,000, so it was no surprise he fist-pumped and saluted every victor against the world number 54 from Lithuania like he was lifting the trophy on the final Sunday.
The left-hander had earned just over $400 this season, hacking around the third tier of the professional circuit.
The 28th-seeded American ended the match with his 33rd ace, beating Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic 6-7 (6), 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-2, 12-10.
Willis has one victory at Wimbledon to his credit, Federer has 80.
“Obviously it’s an unbelievable dream come true”, he admitted.
Twelve months on and the 34-year-old has played only six events in 2016, and his 16-6 win-loss record will raise doubts about his ability to last five sets in a season beset with injury and illness. This is what I dreamt of when I was younger.
Stat of the Day: 772 – Ranking of Marcus Willis, who gives tennis lessons in central England and won the first tour-level match of his career.
“It is probably a lot harder planning for a genius but I honestly believe that no one is ungettable”.
“I felt I had to stop everything by not playing Paris… just reset from there and make another push for Wimbledon, which was great”, said Federer, who was sporting a white t-shirt emblazoned with a red double-decker bus sandwiched between SW19 lettering.
“It’s gotten out of hand”. It got him his debut appearance at Wimbledon-plus headlines and now a huge following.
Now there’s something to brag about to friends: “The guy who coaches me is playing Federer at Wimbledon”. Despite losing the first set 6-0 and being 3-0 down in the second, Ward won the next game to huge cheers and when he broke Djokovic the momentum begin to swing in his favour as he played some sublime shots taking the set to a tie-break. I lost a lot of confidence. Made some bad decisions. Went out too much.
By his own admission, Willis was overweight and “a bit of a loser” until reflecting that he was frittering away his talent before setting about putting his life back on track.
“I used to train with him a little bit when I was a junior and I was a hitting partner a couple of times with the Davis Cup”, he said.
“Lifestyle wasn’t good. Yeah, didn’t have the drive”.
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At 29, the Serb is in his prime after becoming only the third man to hold all four grand slams at once, a feat he achieved by grinding his way to the French Open title three weeks ago. Ridiculous times in the morning. Its cutthroat, Willis said. He’s a legend of the game. “I’ve got to keep working, keep my head down, and get on with it”.
