To all intents and purposes, the road to the Wimbledon final started yesterday, which is why we bring you news of the first British Wimbledon win of the summer. Our hero is James May, from Meopham, Kent, whose world ranking is nearly in the 1,000s and makes him the lowest-ranked player with a shot at Roger Federer’s title.

The Times intends to follow May all the way to the Wimbledon final on July 8, or at least until May loses, and then we will pick up the trail with his conqueror. And so on.

We started yesterday at the Wimbledon qualifying event at the Bank of England club in Roehampton, southwest London, and, given that May was playing a man ranked 806 places above him, we thought that we would be telling you about Lukas Lacko, the 19-year-old Slovak, who will check out of his Premier Travel Inn in Putney this morning and attempt to negotiate his way out of his room reservation that was booked until Thursday.

The good news for Lacko is that the £85-per-day allowance at this tournament stretches for two days beyond each players’ survival, so that covers the £52.50 room charge in the Premier Travel Inn. Add to that his flights, coaches and other expenses, and his prize-money for being a first-round loser – £1,575 – just about keeps him ahead for the trip.

That is how it works at this level. That is how it works for May. He got his singles ranking down into the 700s last year and relies on his success in doubles (in which he is ranked No 245 in the world) for the bulk of his income. The least we can say is that he has tenacity of spirit because he is at an age – 26 – when most have peaked and, despite having a degree from Loughborough University, he is resolved to battle away in the foothills of his sport. Neither does he have an open invitation to the LTA’s gleaming new high-performance centre in Roehampton. Instead he has to phone to find if anyone there needs a partner to hit with.

And yes, all that is frustrating. And yes, he knows that with a ranking around the 1,000 mark, retirement is an inevitability. For a start, he would rather not be living at home and he is keen to start paying off his student loan.

“It kills me to be sponging off my parents and my girlfriend’s parents,” he said yesterday. “People say to me, ‘Keep playing.’ But I wouldn’t mind being able to afford my own place for once.”

He is only nine victories from winning Wimbledon – that should sort it. And that might sound like a lot of winning, but May has already come a considerable distance to get this far. He did not just march into the qualifying tournament yesterday by dint of the fact that he is No 972 in the world. No, previously he had not even qualified to play the Wimbledon qualifying tournament. To qualify for the qualifier, he had to play in a “wild-card tournament” in Raynes Park and get through three rounds there to win a place in the next stage.

So while we like to talk about the pressure on a player, for instance, in a Wimbledon final, imagine May in the tie-break of the last set of his last round in Raynes Park. The prize-money was £600 plus a ticket to the Bank of England (expenses and all). “We were playing for quite a lot,” he said in his typically understated manner.

And now that he has yesterday’s win to his name, his prize-money is up to £3,150. Victory in the next round, against Sam Warburg, the American who is ranked No 206, and the payday is £6,300. And let’s be clear about this ranking business: No 972 is high for May – the “dizzy heights” he coins it sarcastically – because a few weeks ago, until a win in Surbiton, he was ranked No 1,522.

And no, he did not just stroll into Surbiton, either. He had to qualify for that event, too.