The Marcus Willis Tennis Cinderella Story Now Has A U.S. Open Chapter

By Randy Walker

@TennisPublisher

Do you remember the Cinderella story of Marcus Willis?

Well, there’s now a U.S. Open tale to tell.

Willis, the left-hander from Britain, famously came out of a retirement and got to play in a pre-qualifying tournament at Wimbledon in 2016 to incredibly win three matches in the qualifying tournament, a first-round main draw match and then ultimately ended up playing Roger Federer on Centre Court at Wimbledon.

Now, fast-forward nine years and Willis, coming out of a second retirement more or less, was able to sneak into the men’s doubles draw at the 2025 U.S. Open as an alternate and, alongside partner Karol Drzewiecki, registered an incredible first-round upset over Jordan Thompson, part of the defending U.S. Open doubles championship team, and Matt Ebden, who the Olympic gold medal in doubles the previous summer.

Just getting to play the U.S. Open is career milestone for Willis, the 34-year-old whose only previous Grand Slam tournament appearances have been at Wimbledon. “The thought of this was mad…mad to be playing in the U.S. Open,” said Willis of just being able to play in the U.S. Open let only stage a monumental first-round upset.

With his ranking at No. 90 in the world in doubles, Willis knew he was close to getting into the main draw of doubles and flew to New York to take a chance that he would get in. “I was always going to come here and try because I knew I would be close,” he said.

He and Drzewiecki were in the draw with 15 minutes left before the sign-in for the event closed, he said, but then a few higher ranked players signed in at the last minute, bumping him out. It wasn’t until Francisco Cerundolo and Federico Gomez pulled out of the doubles event after the draw was made that Willis and Drzewiecki got into the draw as an alternate team.

“That was pretty exciting,” said Willis when he learned he was finally into a Grand Slam tournament besides Wimbledon. “But then I saw the draw and I thought ‘OK, don’t get too excited.’”

They were drawn to face Thompson, who won the U.S. Open the previous year and reached the Wimbledon final with Max Purcell in 2024, and Ebden, the former world No. 1 doubles players who won the Olympic gold medal with fellow Aussie John Peers at the Paris Olympics.

Willis said despite having some personal issues getting used to the U.S. Open match conditions, they were able to stage the unlikely upset win, winning 7-6 (5), 6-2.

“We got the roll of the green at the right moment,” said Willis of the win, using a golf metaphor. “Even after the win, it still hasn’t sunk in yet. It’s one of the better wins for sure.”

It was only four years ago when Willis retired from tennis, basically for a second time. Prior to his Cinderella story at Wimbledon in 2016, he was about the hang up the racquets before being convinced to stay in the game by his then girlfriend, now wife. Willis played what he thought was his final career event at an ITF $15,000 event in Greece in 2020. But about a year later when a friend who had come into some money told him that if he wanted to return to pro tennis, he would finance him, Willis decided to get in shape and return to the tour, but in doubles only.

Said Willis, “I retired and I was very lucky. A family friend of mine came into some money and he said ‘Look, you are still playing well, I was playing some exhibition matches and beating world ranked guys in singles, and he came to me and said ‘My company would like to give you some money if you would like to go out and play some doubles.’ He said I could play singles, but I like to dream but I’m a little bit more realistic, certainly with my body and things like that. I had to think about because I had to get myself in shape again because I had ballooned a bit.”

After getting back into shape, and getting the support from his wife and four kids (two step children and two children of his own), Willis tried to get into events with no ranking, and not immediately getting any wild card entries, signing into events. However, when he got into a International Tennis Federation Futures event as an alternate he was able to win some matches and get ATP ranking points to help him gain entry into tournaments. After slogging through ITF events for most of the next two years and slowly improving his ranking, (“Playing with a lot of people, just trying to find my game,” he said) he had another career milestone when he reached the doubles final earlier this summer at the ATP 250-level event in Umag, Croatia.

Willis was asked where this upset and appearance in the U.S. Open would rank among his efforts in tennis, he cited, along with this U.S. Open victory with the Federer match, of course, his runner-up showing in Umag and defeating the defending Wimbledon champions Nico Mahut and Pierres-Hughes Herbert en route to the Wimbledon doubles third round in 2017.

“I love being here,” he said with a smile from the U.S. Open press room. “New experiences all the time. I have a great life. It’s wonderful.”