King Wins First Round In Hong Kong

Joelle King has this afternoon scored a hard-fought victory in the first round of US$140,000 Hong Kong women’s draw accounting for Egyptian qualifier Nadine Shahin in five games.

King who is ranked ninth in the world won the match in 49 minutes 7-11 11-1 10-12 11-9 11-4 and will now play the winner of sixth seed Sarah-Jane Perry from England or Coline Aumard (France) in the second round.

"She (Shahin) was coming at me at 100mph and all credit to her, she played really well throughout the whole match. I guess a little bit of experience helped in the end being the senior player. I wasn't feeling that comfortable out there but I managed to relax at the end of the fourth and I started thinking about getting in front and playing my game and it worked. I'm happy to come through in five and play another day tomorrow,” said the 29-year-old King.

"Coming into the start of the season, no one knows where anyone is at and when you get a few results on the board, you put a little bit of pressure on yourself to keep playing well. Today at the start I was a little bit off and she came out firing, so I had to really dig deep and having a few good results of late helps give you the confidence to believe in your game even when you're down."

Meanwhile in the US$165,000 men’s draw at the Hong Kong Open Paul Coll takes on top seed and world No.1 Gregory Gaultier of France in the second round on Thursday.