Willis sets up Wimbledon qualifier with Broady

Britain’s Marcus Willis stayed on course for a return to the main draw at Wimbledon after winning his first qualifying match yesterday.

Willis, having missed out on a main-draw Wimbledon wildcard, took on Slovakia’s Andrej Martin in the first qualifying round after receiving a wildcard for the event.

In front of around 150 spectators - including baby daughter Martha - Willis ran out an impressive 7-5, 7-5 winner.

The 26-year-old from Slough won six matches in prequalifying and qualifying to reach the Championships last year, before losing to seventime champion Roger Federer in the second round.

That day Willis delighted the Centre Court crowd with some audacious shot-making, and even elicited the odd smile and nod of appreciation from Federer, as he went lost 6-0, 6-3, 6-4.

Since his SW19 heroics of 2016, Willis has halved his world ranking to 387, but was still facing a player 241 places higher.

Willis took the first set against Martin in 25 minutes, breaking his opponent in the 11th game.

Willis repeated the trick in the second set, breaking Martin to love before serving out to secure another higherranked scalp.

The victory set up an allBritish clash in the second round with Liam Broady who beat Canadian Frank Dancevic 6-2, 6-3.

Whoever wins between Willis and Broady will need to survive one further match to qualify for Wimbledon