King-Turner doubles runner-up in challenger event

New Zealand's Dan King-Turner and partner Frederik Nielsen of Denmark reached the doubles final of the US$125,000 challenger tournament in Taiwan over the weekend. The unseeded pair caused upset top seeds Alexander Kudryavtsev (Russia) and Denys Molchanov (Ukraine) 6-2 6-1 in the quarterfinals, before edging fourth seeds Cheng-Peng Hsieh and Hsin-Han Lee of Chinese Taipei in the semifinals. In the final, King-Turner and Nielsen faced second seeds John Paul Fruttero (United States) and Raven Klaasen (South Africa). The Kiwi and Danish duo took out the first set in a tiebreak but lost the second 7-5. In the third set super tiebreak, it was the second seeds who came up with the 10-8 win. Taiwan proved a good tournament for King-Turner, who also reached the semifinals of the singles. After qualifying for the main draw, King-Turner beat eighth seed Kudryavtsev to advance into the quarterfinals. King-Turner, coming back onto the circuit ranked at 816, lost to third seed and world No 95 Tatsuma Ito of Japan 5-7 6-3 3-6. The results boosted King-Turner's world rankings to No 562 in the singles and No 323 in the doubles.