LET’S BUILD BACK
As Wimbledon 2016 hero ditches racket for a shovel he urges LTA to improve the sport’s foundations
Marcus Willis is working on a building site from which he sees no way back to the tennis circuit. One of the more colourful careers of recent times in British tennis has come to an end, with the one-time unlikely Wimbledon hero calling it quits.
Willis leaves with no regrets and looks back in his usual cheerful manner, but also sounds a serious warning about a wider exodus of aspiring players from the professional game.
For him, and he thinks others, the sums simply no longer add up when it comes to forging a path. a combination of fewer lower-tier tournaments with reduced ranking points, less prize money and increased pandemic travel costs will tip many over the edge.
The two doubles events he played in Greece three months ago will be his last, he tells Sportsmail, breaking off from lugging bricks at his cousin’s building firm.
He leaves with a rich array of experiences. These range from winning seven singles matches at Wimbledon 2016, culminating in facing roger Federer on centre court, to once missing a minor tournament in romania after getting on the wrong train at Bucharest’s main station.
‘it would just have cost me too much over the next few years, even though i had sponsorship offers,’ says Willis, 30, who had planned to concentrate on the doubles circuit. ‘it has become too h hard d now with ith th the points it on offer at the lower end. They need to look at it. i won’t be the only one and the situation is even worse in the women’s game. Even if i had done really well, it would have taken two years to try to get to where i wanted.
‘You look at someone like (fellow GB player) lloyd Glasspool. He’s a good player and has reached eight finals at challenger level in less than five months, but he’s still outside the top 100 where the money is. i’m older and i’ve got a family to look after, but i’m worried you will see more players of all ages dropping out. You’ve got to play more events to get points. To survive, you will need more financial backing.’
He and his immediate age group are an interesting study in the fortunes of British tennis. a group of around six from the same year were considered to have excellent potential but only Dan Evans — after many false starts — made the world’s singles top 100.
Willis was to win 29 professional doubles titles in the lower tiers, 12 of them with lewis Burton, who endured the blowtorch of public scrutiny last year over his relationship with the late caroline Flack. a big factor, Willis believes, has been the reduction in ranking tournaments held in the UK, plus the centralised approach of the lawn Tennis association. ‘There used to be at least 20 of them per year with a bonus scheme if you did well,’ says Willis. ‘You could see how to make a living, and we had a greater volume of players getting up the rankings. There was too much of putting you with a coach they decided on. There are world-class coaches at the LTA and in the UK, but it has to work with the player.
‘Tennis is a deeply individual sport. The French understand this more. i hate to think of the number of talented British players i’ve seen who ended up doing normal jobs, but it’s a very tough sport to make it in. i know at times i wasn’t disciplined enough, i was probably a bit of a nightmare to deal with.’
The obvious highlight of his career was the run at Wimbledon, which began in the Brit- only pre-qualifying event. His further progress looks all the more impressive in hindsight as he took out the two russians who are now in the top 10, Daniil Medvedev and andrey rublev.
‘Playing roger and everything that went with it was fantastic but maybe the happiest day was picking my badge up as a main draw competitor having made it on merit. i actually got a bit emotional,’ Willis recalls.
Most of his career, however, was spent in the rarely seen backwaters of the sport, including countries like romania.
‘i was due to be playing in a place called Brasov and gave the ticket desk a note that was meant to explain it. i got on this train and after a few hours, i was thinking that it didn’t feel right. i eventually worked out i was on a train to Bascov, which was nowhere near. i didn’t make the top 100 but i learned some great life lessons.’