Canterbury's Dan King-Turner won his first-round match at the Hamilton tennis Futures yesterday, earning him his first ATP singles ranking point.
King-Turner defeated Japan's Toshihide Matsui in the first round of US$15,000 ($21,000) event at the ASB Waikato Tennis Centre 5-7, 6-3, 6-3.
Matsui is ranked at 463, giving 20 year-old King-Turner one of the best wins of his career which will give him the ATP singles entry ranking.
"I feel like I'm playing pretty well at the moment. I've finally played well for a whole match," said King-Turner. "I don't really know my next opponent [John-Paul Fruttero] but I hear he plays a similar game to the guy I played today."
With an eye on a Davis Cup place, King-Turner has been training in Queenstown with former South African pro and now coach, Lan Bale. "It's been good preparation and seems to have paid off."
He will face sixth seed John-Paul Fruttero of the United States who is 375th in the world.
New Zealand No 1 Mark Nielsen scored an easy first round win by dispatching Hong Kong qualifier Martin Sayer 6-1, 6-3 in 45 minutes.
The challenge gets more difficult for Nielsen as he now takes on eighth seeded American, Scott Lipsky who is ranked at 452.
Seventeen-year-old Rubin Statham will play a tough, but winnable match against Japanese fourth seed Satoshi Iwabuchi who sits at 342 in the world.
Meanwhile, Hamilton local Matthew Stark was easily beaten by third seed Fred Hemmes of the Netherlands 6-0, 6-1. Stark, 17, had no answer to the precise-hitting Hemmes who is ranked inside the world's top 350 players.
World No 2 junior Sun-Yong Kim of Korea easily beat Aucklander, Adam Thompson to set up a clash with fifth seed Norikazu Sugiyama of Japan.
Tennis: King-Turner's on the way
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