ATHLETE OF THE WEEK: MARCUS WILLIS

MARCUS WILLIS, a British 23-year-old, professional tennis player, is this week’s PledgeSports Athlete of the Week.

Ranked 322 in the world in singles and 224 in doubles, he has his eyes on the prize: Wimbledon 2015. Having jumped up the rankings, his dreams of reaching Wimbledon are now on course to becoming a reality.

Having started playing tennis at just 9 years of age, Marcus Willis has trained and mentally prepared for making it to the big leagues. Training before and after school during his teenage years lead him to being selected to play tennis for Great Britain at only 15, and it guided him towards becoming Britain’s no. 1 Junior player and achieving no.15 in the world.

Like many athletes, Marcus has been plagued by funding challenges as a result of budget cuts. This has hindered his tennis career; coming up with the money required to play in tennis tournaments to improve his ranking and make it to the Grand Slams has been incredibly difficult.

Marcus was lucky to receive partial sponsorship from A1 Pharmaceuticals which lessened this burden. This support enabled him to play more matches, bringing his ranking up to 322 from the 900’s. This highlights how important receiving funding is. By improving his ranking, he is now closer than ever to his dream of playing in Wimbledon.

In order to continue on his journey to Wimbledon 2015, he must play more matches to continue to move up the rankings. This involves a lot of travelling and this is precisely why he has turned to PledgeSports. We have noted several times that travelling is a huge expense for athletes. This is the same story for Marcus Willis.

Support Marcus on his road to Wimbledon 2015.