The beauty of major sports tournaments are the upsets; Cinderella stories that come out of nowhere to shock the world. These Cinderella stories turn teams and individual athletes that the average person did not know into household names. For example, the surprise runs that Butler and the 1980 US Hockey team had will forever be engraved in the memories of sport's fans. Stories like this tug on the heart strings of fans globally, and can serve as inspiration for future generations. Wimbledon’s lore is rich with early round upsets and unlikely winners.
The prestigious Wimbledon tournament kicked off Monday. The first round of Wimbledon traditionally showcases underdogs getting steamrolled with the occasional upset. Monday, for Marcus Willis, will be a day that he will never forget. His story, barring something drastic, will be the biggest Cinderella story from this tournament. Going into Monday, Willis had won a total of $356 this calendar year, still lived with his parents, and was ranked the 772nd best player in the world. Willis was not an automatic qualifier for the world’s biggest tennis tournament. His world ranking was just high enough to allow him to qualify him for the last available wildcard spot after the withdrawal of Scott Clayton, requiring Willis to win three straight matches to compete in the actual tournament. The British wildcard players are historically overmatched in the playoffs and no Brit wildcard had made the tournament since 2008. Miraculously, Willis beat three much higher ranked, and more talented, players to advance to the Wimbledon men's main draw. Just by qualifying for the field, this would be the largest amount of prize money he had won in a single tournament. The amazing story happened far from the limelight of Centre Court on Court 13. Mark Willis beat Ricardas Berankis, who was ranked number 54, in the world in straight set. Unfortunately, the clock would strike midnight just two days later against one of the all-time greats in Roger Federer on Centre Court. Everybody knew that it would take a near divine intervention to upset Federer; although, everybody, including Federer, was rooting for Willis and his miraculous story. Willis did not win a single set against Federer; however, the highlight of the match was the moment after he won his first game, causing absolute bedlam in Wimbledon’s largest stadium.
This story was on the brink of never happening. In February, Willis was offered a few positions as a tennis pro coaching in Philadelphia. He had made up his mind that he was going to accept one of the jobs until he met Jennifer Bates. The future couple hit it off immediately. After a few dates, he filled her in on his plans of moving to the United States, giving up his playing career. Jennifer quickly prompted him to not give up on his playing career just yet. This moment became the catalyst to reboot his career, which ended up making. Thank goodness for this chance meeting because without this occurrence, this amazing story would have never been written.
