Marcus Willis, who reached the second round at Wimbledon last summer, has been handed a first round tie against French prospect Ronan Joncour in the $15,000 Aegon GB Pro-Series tournament at The Shrewsbury Club.
Willis, 26, seeded five for the tournament and currently ranked 445 in the world, reached the semi-finals of a similar event in Tipton last week and will now hope to enjoy a successful week in Shropshire to help him continue to move in the right direction.
Willis against Joncour, a 20-year-old left-hander from Paris more than 300 places lower in the rankings, will be the opening match on court one today at 10.30am.
It’s one of a host of attractive matches in a first round draw conducted during a civic reception hosted by the Mayor of Shrewsbury, Councillor Ioan Jones, last night.
Dave Courteen, the managing director of The Shrewsbury Club, hopes many local tennis fans will take advantage of free admission throughout the week to watch players of the quality of Willis.
He said: “Marcus is a big attraction with what he achieved at Wimbledon last year in reaching the second round and playing Roger Federer, so there will be a lot of interest in him.
“But there’s lots of games in the first round that are really exciting to look forward to and, just looking at the quality, we’re going to be once again blown away by the standard of the tennis
“The quality of the final qualifying round was something else. I’ve been here five years now and I’ve never seen a qualifying round quite as strong as it was this time. There was some incredible tennis that, with no exaggeration, would have graced the final.”
Lloyd Glasspool, from Birmingham, is the highest ranked British player competing in Shrewsbury this week and faces a first round clash today against German Tobias Simon. Glasspool is currently ranked 364 in the world and Simon just over 200 places lower.
Two Brits were among the eight players to make it through from the qualifying rounds. Joel Cannell’s reward is a first round match against top seed, Belgium’s Germain Gigounon, whose world ranking is 277, while Scott Duncan, who also impressed in the qualifiers, will now take on fellow Brit Scott Clayton.