For a moment during last year’s draw ceremony for Wimbledon, Alex Ward’s heart skipped a beat. 

With a Wimbledon wild card for the first time in his career, he and a friend were listening in as the names began dropping in among the seeds for the gentlemen’s singles bracket.

“Djokovic came out, then Ward came out,” the 27-year-old remembers. Surely not, he thought – a Grand Slam debut against the two-time defending champion and world No.1, opening the Centre Court action on the first day of The Championships?

“I stopped – and then it was James Ward. I was like, OK!”

In the end, the Northampton native drew No.11 seed David Goffin in the first round, going down 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 on Court 3. “It was a bit better, but not too much better,” Ward joked on Thursday, wide-eyed and all smiles after booking his spot at Wimbledon for a second straight year.

This time, though, he feels he’s earned it. Walking through the gates at the All England Club was a thrill in 2016, but there will be an added satisfaction attached on his return at this year’s Championships to face British No.2 Kyle Edmund in the first round on Tuesday.

“It’ll mean everything, especially having qualified,” said Ward, who beat former world No.43 Teymuraz Gabashvili in the final round at Roehampton. “I feel like I really deserve my place there.

“It feels incredible, to be honest. I’d never won a match in Wimbledon qualifying before this year – I’d lost four times – and it feels unbelievable. I’m struggling to get my head around it.”

Parallels with his former training partner Marcus Willis’s run from pre-qualifying to Centre Court and a showdown with Roger Federer are inescapable. “I did have it in mind,” admitted Ward, who at No.885 in the world is the lowest-ranked player to reach the main draw since 1998, largely due to a six-month injury lay-off with a mystery wrist injury.

“It was pretty serious,” Ward explained. “I was seeing a fair few specialists to get different opinions, and nobody really knew what it was. In the end, I had a cortisone injection and that calmed the tendons down – fortunately didn’t have to have surgery.”

The road back has been anything but easy. After pre-season training in Spain, Ward has been everywhere from North Africa to South Korea in search of wins on the ITF Futures circuit, to little avail. He arrived at the pre-qualifying tournament in the midst of a seven-match losing streak dating back to early April.

“I actually lost the first set to someone who got a wild card into the playoffs, so it was really step by step,” admitted Ward, who in fact lost in the final round of pre-qualifying to Daniel Cox.

“I’d had two match points. I thought that was it, then luckily they opened up two more wild card spots. Each match got better. I kept training hard and I kept believing in those months and weeks when I wasn’t playing well, and I think it’s fortunately come together for Wimbledon – the best tournament.”

Reaching The Championships also provides a welcome financial lifeline that, much as they would like to, no player trying to make ends meet on the Challenger and Futures circuits can ignore. Ward can already bank on making £35,000 in prize money having reached the first round.

“The money can go into my tennis,” said Ward. “I haven’t got a coach at the moment, so I can invest in a coach, can have better preparation for matches. It’s a big sum of money. There’s not much money at Futures tournaments. It's tough down there, but days like today make it all worthwhile.”

One of seven Britons in the gentlemen’s singles main draw, Ward has once again avoided the world No.1 and defending champion in the first round, with Andy Murray taking on lucky loser Alexander Bublik on Monday.

Nevertheless, his all-British clash with world No.48 Edmund is bound to grab a share of the spotlight when the duo meet on Tuesday. It’s not Federer, or indeed Djokovic, and that suits Ward just fine. He isn’t looking for a Hollywood ending, rather a kick-start to the journey back.

This week in Roehampton, he earned it. “It’s probably less of a fairy tale,” Ward said. “But for me, it’s perfect.”

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