Success overnight for James Story who has qualified for the main draw of the Australian Open Boys event. James will become the first Welsh junior to play in the event since Sarah Loosemore in 1988. James battled in some extremely hot conditions to win two long qualifying matches against Alex Bulte (Australia) 5/7 6/4 6/4 and Egor Agafonov (Russia) 6/4 6/7 6/4 to book his place in the main draw alongside the world's best juniors.
James already has experience of playing in a junior grand slam event by way of his run to the semi-final of the boys doubles at Wimbledon in 2018. But this will be his first taste of main draw singles action though, which is an exciting milestone for him. James has set his sights on being ranked inside the top 100 juniors in the world this year and competing in all of the junior grand slam events. He will also be targeting some senior world ranking events on the ITF World Tennis Tour.
Interim CEO, Simon Johnson for Tennis Wales said;
“This is a fantastic result for James qualifying for the Australian Open Boys event. We hope his success continues to inspire other younger players in Wales to get on court and compete at the highest levels of the world game. Everyone in Welsh tennis wishes James a great run in Australia in the main draw later this week”.
James' from Thornhill, Cardiff trains at Cardiff Met University within the XL Tennis Academy programme and has been doing so since he started at the age of 3. He was coached there by Ellen Jones until aged 11 and has since been working with Chris Lewis.