Billy's next opponent is a couple of years older than him, but perhaps a bit of an inspiration. Played some ITF juniors but really made a mark only at grade 3 and 4 events at best. Since the age of 18 he has ground out an incremental improvement in rank and along with a couple of other similarly aged compatriots is dominating this current run of Iberian futures. He won in Murcia, Ortega-Olmedo won in Cornella and is still kicking around in the bottom half of the draw.

Billy is having a stunning little run since he has headed south, playing a lot of qualys and winning through. I always feel that this is one of the younger tournaments. It strikes me that this year there are no junior phenomena doing this run of futures and plenty of players in their peak years 22-27 featuring in the main draws, non of the seeds here are tennagers with only 6/7 in the main draw a couple of which turn 20 this month.

It will be interesting to see if this is real, but I suppose it has to be purely because of the ages of players in the top 100 and although the draw in each tournament reflects those that have entered once you get to a critical mass with 4 rounds of qualifying it reflects rank.