While many of us may have been occupied with our families looking for the Easter bunny, Scott Willis from Bovey Tracey was challenging some of the top fencers from the UK and Europe in the Birmingham International.

Willis, a member of Newton Abbot Fencing Club, not only won all his fights in the seeding round, but also doing so against a fencer who, in the past, he has always narrowly lost against. This placed him as fifth seed out of 83 competitors, and from then on he successfully progressed through the competition maintaining his fifth place before coming up against fourth seed and UK national champion, Tom Edwards.

Edwards established an early lead that Scott was unable to break and lost 15-8.

Willis, who is sponsored by Salago in Totnes, started fencing in his early teens at the Newton Abbot club some ten years ago.

His turning point came at a competition in France when he was 16 and where he had been seeded 31st.

He was challenged by the then number two. After a poor start, Willis worked out the tactics he needed and much to his opponent’s surprise, took him out to win 15-13.

He has never looked back and last year he reached the top 50 in the national ranking and recently won the Liverpool Open.