Wanganui teenage cousins Paige Hourigan and Kyle Butters have made sensational starts to their respective Junior International Tennis Federation (ITF) assignments in Korea this week.
Butters is in the New Zealand Junior Davis Cup for boys, while Hourigan and her teammates are playing in the Junior Federation Cup.
Both the New Zealand boys and girls teams got off to the best possible start at the Asia/Oceania Final Round Qualifying on Monday (NZ time), with both winning their opening ties 3-0 in Gimcheon, Korea.
Captained by Marcel Vos, the Junior Fed Cup side, which includes Hourigan, Rosie Cheng and Annabel Ellis, are seeded seventh at the event, and made light work of Kazakhstan. Hourigan took the top singles 6-2 6-2, while Cheng continued her good form in Korea winning 6-1 6-3, before the two combined to take the doubles rubber.
The seventh seeded Kiwis are drawn in Pool D with fourth seeds Korea, and unseeded Kazakhstan and Malaysia. Yesterday, Hourigan and her teammates were to take on host nation Korea in their toughest assignment yet.
The Junior Davis Cup side has been drawn in Pool A with top seeds Korea, Uzbekistan and Malaysia, and started their campaign with a 3-0 win over the Uzbek team on day one.
The team of Butters, William Matheson and Connor Heap, coach/captained by Lan Bale, seeded fifth, got off to a great start with Heap winning the second singles rubber in straight sets. Butters found himself a set down in the top singles, but was able to fight his way back into the match, putting the Kiwis up 2-0 with a 4-6 6-4 6-4 win. Heap then teamed with Matheson for a straight sets doubles win.
Hourigan's mother Tracy said her daughter had settled in well in Korea and was looking forward to upcoming matches.
"I have only talked to her once and she was complaining because the coach was taking their cellphones off them by 9pm each night. She got no support from me - I asked the coach to do it," she said.
"Both the girls and boys have made a big start, although the first two ties were against unseeded countries. The boys were rained off on Tuesday and the indoor courts were allocated to the girls, so I feel for them. There was no rain days set aside at the tournament, so the boys will be forced to play back-to-back matches to catch up."
The boys were set to play Malaysia yesterday.
"We really want them to finish top of their pools, so they have a better chance of making the semi-finals during the quarter finals. The top two teams from the quarters make the semis, but in the girls anyway, only the top three teams qualify for the world finals in Mexico in September." she said.
As of April 8 this year, Hourigan was ranked 205 in the world junior ITF ratings and sat second in New Zealand behind Emily Fanning who is ranked 89. Butters was ranked 202 in the junior world ratings.