Darian King would have deemed his Memphis Open a success had he qualified for just his second ATP World Tour main draw. Having done that, however, the 24-year-old entered uncharted territory on Tuesday when he took down No. 5 seed Bernard Tomic in the opening round to become the first player from Barbados in the Open Era to win an ATP World Tour match.
The World No. 140 in the Emirates ATP Rankings prevailed 6-4, 6-4. “Playing against Bernard, the No. 5 seed is a dream come true, playing on Centre Court especially,” King said.
“The discipline in Barbados is not as big so to come from there and compete against these guys as you can see, it’s a lot of progress. I’m glad to get my first ATP win.
“For me I played at least three years in Futures against college guys and Americans then basically had my first breakthrough in Cali, Colombia, in a Challenger against former Top 50 player Victor Estrella [Burgos]. Then I guess I kind of realised I can play.”
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This was just King’s second main draw appearance after winning through qualifying in Washington, D.C in 2015. He lost first round on that occasion to Go Soeda.
“That was a great experience to qualify there but to get a win against a former Top 17 player is a thrill,” he said. “I’m stoked and hopefully I can continue. I’m glad for this win for Barbados. I trained hard for this moment.”
Ryan Harrison booked a second-round meeting with fellow American, third seed Sam Querrey. The world No. 62 in the Emirates ATP Rankings who won 85 per cent of his first-serve points to beat Russian Konstantin Kravchuk 6-3, 7-5.
“First set was pretty straight forward. My first-serve percentage was high. I hit a lot of aces and felt like I was controlling the tempo,” Harrison said. “It kind of changed in the second, actually when I was serving out the first set I threw in two double faults and that sparked a little bit of momentum for him.
“Previous to that he had no real look at my serve. Unfortunately that led to him being more confident and me having a bit lower energy at the start of the second set.”
Matthew Ebden won the battle of the qualifiers against Peter Polansky, beating the Canadian 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-1. The Aussie awaits the winner of the match between No. 8 seed Yen-Hsun Lu and #NextGenATP player Taylor Fritz.