Tearney into Classic main draw

Finn Tearney has made it through to the main draw of the ASB Classic, winning his match in the final round of qualifying.

Tearney, who is ranked 494 in the world, beat Britain’s Cameron Norrie 6-1 6-3 and becomes the first Kiwi to come through the qualifying draw in Auckland since GD Jones in 2008.

Norrie, who is ranked 276 and was raised in New Zealand, switched nationalities to Britain in search of funding and support. As he was ranked over 200 places higher than Tearney, Norrie was expected to win.

But Tearney was able to produce some brilliant tennis to wrap up the first set in no time. The second set was locked at 3-3 and Tearney had to battle hard to hold serve in the next game. But once he did that, he continued that momentum for the remainder of the match.

Tearney, from Wellington, will play either Dustin Brown, Robin Haase, Facundo Bagnis or Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the first round of the main draw.

Earlier, Rubin Statham lost 6-4 6-1 in 76 minutes to American Ryan Harrison.

It was always going to be a tall order for Statham against a player ranked 90 in the world, with the 29-year-old holding a world ranking of 461. It came down to Harrison being just that bit more consistent than Statham and also being able to come through on the really big points.