British star opens up on his darkest moments… and his rise to the top 100 of the ATP Rankings

Marcus Willis has a tennis story so many talented young players will relate to.

A highly promising junior player, Willis was tipped to make his mark in the professional ranks, but completing the leap from the junior ranks into the senior tour has always been one of the biggest challenges.

This was the story for British hopeful Willis, who struggled to find his feet in a man’s world on the ATP Tour and failed to make the strides forward he had been hoping for.

There were fleeting moments of glory, with the obvious high coming as he qualified for the main draw at Wimbledon and played an entertaining second round clash against the great Roger Federer on Centre Court in 2016.

That was portrayed as a fairy story for the local hero who was portrayed as a breakthrough act enjoying his lone moment of glory on the game’s biggest stage.

Roll the clock forward eight years and Willis was back at Wimbledon last month after a hugely impressive rise up the doubles rankings gave him a chance to ‘live the dream’ as he played on No.1 Court in front of a big crowd and picked up a win in the Mixed Doubles alongside fellow Brit Lizzy Barnett.

It was a fine reward for a player who has battled hard to break into the top 100 of the doubles rankings over the last couple of years by winning a host of lower-level events and showing a commitment to the game that he admits may not always have been there.

Known as something of a party boy in his younger days, Willis struggled to get the backing he needed off the court to build a successful career, despite his natural talents.

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Make no mistake, Willis wanted the dream of playing at the highest level of the game and his talent may well have taken him there, but as the 33-year-old sat down for an exclusive interview with Tennis365, he admitted he looks back with some regret on what might have been.

“If I knew then what I know now about tennis, I would do things very differently,” began Willis.

“One of the challenges for me at the start was I didn’t have a team of people around me who I could trust and who could guide me.

“I had quite a sheltered upbringing, it was all about tennis. Then I get to 19 and I am by myself trying to navigate a career in this sport.

“I gravitated towards a certain type of character at tournaments. Maybe I went out too much. It was nothing too extreme, but I was doing the wrong things off court.

“I was training hard on court, but I was out of shape because I wasn’t eating the right things and wasn’t sleeping enough. I was drinking too much. I was young and carefree, I suppose. ”

Willis clearly regrets some of his decisions in his formative days on the tennis tour, as he suggests all the successful players have a support network that gives them a platform to shine.

“You look at the people who succeed in this sport and they have a solid team around them from the start, including family members,” he added.

“You need someone to guide you like a parent if they are not there.

“Look at someone like Andy Murray. He is unbelievably talented, but he has always had great people around him. Novak Djokovic is the same.

“They have had the same people around for a long time and that has helped their careers. All the top guys have people around they can trust and I lacked that at the start of my career.”

When Willis spoke to Tennis365 in late 2022, he was at the start of his dream to get back to Wimbledon as a doubles player.

At an age when most tennis players who have failed to scale the heights of the game are hanging up their rackets, Willis was setting out on a new adventure and he hoped it would end with him making another appearance at the All England Club in the biggest tennis tournament of them all.

Most cynics would have advised him that his dream was forlorn, especially given the scale of the task he took on, but last month he made it.

Three doubles titles on the ITF World Tennis Tour in 2022 were backed up by six more last year and a magnificent seven title wins so far in 2024.

Seven of those titles have come on the ATP Challenger Tour, but that winning run has only just been enough to get him into the top 100 of the ATP Rankings.

“I probably didn’t realise how much I needed to win at Futures and Challenger level to get to where I am now,” added Willis.

“Looking back to three years ago when I started out on this journey, I might have had a second think if I realised how much it was going to take, but I’ve had some amazing moments.

“I’ve won seven Challengers and I have just scraped back into the top 100. That’s a lot of matches to win and a lot of hours on court to get there and the rewards are not massive.

“Getting back in the top 100 was a huge goal of mine, but to get there in less than three years was a massive achievement.

“I gave myself three years to get into the top 100 and I made it at the Nottingham Open this year.

“To get back to Wimbledon, to win a Mixed Doubles match on No.1 Court, it was just amazing. I’m living the dream again. Let’s see what comes next.”

In the second part of our interview with Marcus Willis which will be published on Wednesday, he will look at the challenges of finding a way to pay for a career at the lower levels of tennis.