Parker was on the verge of defeat, having found himself one set and 5-0 down in the second. But having saved a number of match points, he then dug in to turn the match around and emerge triumphant 3-6, 7-6, 6-3 in the eighth tournament of the M15 Monastir series in North Africa.
The win added to the title he picked up at the same venue three weeks ago and, as a result, Parker climbs to a career-high world ranking of 627.
He now hopes to secure inclusion in the qualifying tournament for Wimbledon later this year.
The multiple Island Games gold medallist has spent the last six weeks in Tunisia competing in the weekly tournaments and goes again today in the ninth event of the series – against another Frenchman,m Yanais Laurent.
‘It was nice to back up the first title I had won,’ said Parker. ‘I’ve played a lot of tough matches this week, especially in the first round where I had a number one seed [Switzerland’s Aziz Dougaz].
‘I didn’t play that well [in the final] until I was 5-0 down in the second set and then somehow I just started to play a lot better and I saved four match points in the second set and I eventually won that set. I felt much stronger in the third, while he was obviously thinking about the match points he’d lost, and I was able to get the win which felt really good.’
With options limited due to current Covid-19 travel restrictions, Parker says he is quite happy to stay in Tunisia to keep battling it out in the editions of the M15 series, with an eye on improving his ranking for better opportunities to come.
‘I’ll probably stay here for another two weeks and then I will speak to my coach [Thomas Enqvist] and see what we’re going to do as there’s not too much point in leaving as there’s not much else happening,’ he added. ‘I’ve made a lot of good new friends here, so the days do go by pretty quick.
‘I’m going to get my ranking as high as possible before I leave here and I will try to enter into some bigger tournaments to get more points and keep pushing my ranking. If I can continue, maybe I can get a wildcard into the pre-qualifying at Wimbledon. My key goal is to rack up as many points as possible to try to get into the bigger tournaments.’
