A1 Pharmaceuticals tennis academy first choice doubles pair Berkshire no1 Marcus Willis and Kent no1 Lewis Burton won their 5th doubles title in just 7 outings at the GB F22 futures last week in the Black Country town of Tipton.
The relatively new pairing had to get through a potentially very tough semi-final v A1 (and Berkshire) No2 Neil Pauffley and his partner George Morgan a junior Wimbledon Doubles champion.
As expected the Tipton doubles SF was a highly entertaining match Marcus & lewis eventually coming through quite convincingly in the end 6-3 6-2.
A1 Team Manager Gary lewis said that we were confident prior to the final because we felt we had already defeated the best pair in the tournament in the SF but I also knew it would be a huge mistake to underestimate a University of Stirling pair who would be well prepared by their talented Head of coaching Euan Mcginn.
Euan McGinn can count amongst his successes GB doubles no1 Colin Fleming & world no1 ITF senior 35 Jason Barnett who Gary was fortunate to manage and pair with prior to working with Marcus.
The final proved to be a keenly contested affair with a tight tie-break first set that Marcus & Lewis edged but then went on to dominant the final set winning convincingly in the end 7-6 6-2 .
Gary said he believes that his No1 player & A1 team captain Marcus Willis is the most talented 25 & under Doubles player in GB so was fully prepared to spend as long as it took to find his charge the right doubles partner.
Gary said we made an extensive search throughout the UK and decided it had to be an all GB pairing and was always secretly hoping that a player from my home county of Kent would fit the bill so when Lewis Burton became available and worked out so well it was particularly pleasing.
Lewis had been regularly partnering GB no2 Dan Evans at futures earlier in 2013 prior to Evo’s understandable decision to focus on singles prior to the US open where he had a great run.
Gary said we had experimented with 7 different partners in 2013 until we both agreed that we had found a doubles partnership that could work in the higher challenger and ATP events
Lewis ticked all the important boxes which included willing to support our A1 Aegon team ambitions, locally based, shared calendar, shared training and had a huge doubles pedigree as a former junior Wimbledon doubles finalist and whilst still only 21 years old already had 12 pro futures doubles titles (now 17 pro doubles titles).
Last but not least both young professionals are natural team players and exhibited an obvious chemistry & synergy from the onset .The future is bright for this exciting all GB doubles pairing which will be funded by A1 Pharmaceuticals plc (www.a1plc.co.uk) throughout 2014.
Marcus said Gary and myself have recently appointed 2 new specialist coaches that will be working with both myself and Lewis throughout 2014.
With A1 Pharmaceuticals as a sponsor and managing a well-balanced support team Lewis and myself can now fully focus on our training and winning tennis matches.
After looking at a number of venues we have eventually decided on Surbiton performance academy in Surrey with former ATP Top 250 pro Matt Smith as head coach & Chris Daw assisting.
Fitness & conditioning is being generously sponsored at David Lloyd Beckenham by Ricky Ingram (Trinitytraininguk@gmail.com). Ricky is a great motivator and expert on Conditioning and weight control having worked with a number of England Rugby union players and we are excited to have 2 new expert specialist coaches on board that we're absent in 2013.
Gary Lewis who is managing the pair went on to comment Marcus and Lewis looked a bit fatigued last week in the singles after their energy sapping 3 week tour in the heat and humidity of Kuwait, however they are now back firing on all cylinders and finding their feet again in the doubles.
Marcus has won 10 futures titles in 2013 (3 singles & 7 doubles) the 2nd best tally by a GB player in the 15 year history of the ITF futures. Two futures titles before the end of the year would improve on the current GB record of 11 set by former GB no2 Josh Goodall in 2011 a new all-time GB record .
Marcus has also climbed over 660 places in the ATP singles rankings in 2013 and is currently ranked GB no6 & World no348.
Marcus and Lewis will be back in action at the GB F23 Futures in Edgbaston on 28th October where Marcus is singles No1 seed and the A1 pair are favourites to lift the last GB futures doubles title of the year.
(Lewis Burton, Gary Lewis (Manager) and Marcus Willis)