Kiwi Men In Form In Wellington

The Kiwi men continued their run at the US$15,000 tennis Futures in Wellington with both Dan King-Turner and Rubin Statham going to three sets to eventually make the quarterfinals



For King-Turner and Statham to go another round and make the weekend’s play they will need big efforts in the ASB sponsored event. King-Turner, 24 ranked at 459 plays top seeded Australian and 193rd ranked Carsten Ball.



In his career so far King-Turner has beaten two top-200 players and taking on Ball with his big left-handed serve won’t be easy says the Kiwi No2 who came from a set down against eighth seed Rameez Junaid to win 2-6 7-6(2) 6-4 in his second round match.



“It was a tough match today, I started to play better in the later stages of the match,” said King-Turner “playing Carsten will be difficult. I will try and return his serve and make him play rallies.”



Statham won his contest over Japan’s Yuichi Ito 3-6 6-1 3-0 before Ito had to retire with an injured ankle. Statham has now made the quarters at all three events of the series.



Statham, 21 the tournament seventh seed plays the consistent third seed, Adam Feeney from Australia in the quarters.



In the women’s US$10,000 draw 16-year-old Katherine Westbury came close, but not quite in her second round match against Hamilton tournament winner, Ayu-Fani Damayanti(Indonesia). Damayanti winning 6-2 6-7(1) 6-3.



Top women’s seeds I-Hsuan Hwang(Indonesia) and Montinee Tangphong(Thailand) won their second round matches, while the record time on court for a match went to Chinese qualifier Jie Hao who beat Brazilian seventh seed Ana-Clara Durate 4-6 6-3 7-5 in three hours 25 minutes.



Meanwhile Wairarapa teenager Marcus Daniell is through to his first Futures doubles final combining with Australian Joel Lindner with one of their opponents, Yuichi Ito withdrawing injured. Earlier they had defeated top seeds and top-150 ranked players Junaid and Feeney.



Daniell and Lindner will play the all-Kiwi combination of King-Turner and GD Jones who won the title at the first week of the series and had a three set semifinal win over Americans Rylan Rizza and Kaes Van’t Hof.



ASB Pro Circuit US$15,000 men’s singles quarterfinals round:

(1)Carsten Ball(Australia) bt Kaes Van’t Hof(United States) 6-2 6-3, Dan King-Turner(New Zealand) bt (8)Rameez Junaid(Australia) 2-6 7-6(2) 6-4, (3)Adam Feeney(Australia) bt (Q)Dayne Kelly(Australia) 6-2 6-3, (7)Rubin Statham(New Zealand) bt Yuichi Ito(Japan) 3-6 6-1 3-0 retired, (6)Matteo Viola(Italy) bt (Q)Joel Lindner(Australia) 6-2 6-1, Young-Jun Kim(Korea) bt (Q)Andrew Thomas(Australia) 6-4 6-4, (5)Artem Sitak(Russia) bt (Q)Rylan Rizza(United States) 6-1 6-1, (2)Tatsuma Ito(Japan) bt (Q)Xin-Yuan Yu(China) 7-5 6-4.