The first qualifying round of the New York Open was played on Thursday as eight matches were contested with the winners advancing to Monday's final round of qualifying.
Go Soeda, the top seed and Noah Rubin, the Long Island product joined six other winners as they will look for spots in the main draw of the third edition of the event.
Top-seeded Soeda, Rubin move on
The Japanese dominated, taking care of Frederik Nielsen 6-1, 6-2. Soeda broke the Dane five times, Nielsen, an alternate into the qualifying draw, didn't hold serve until the first game of the second set. The top seed broke twice in a row late in the second set to advance.
Rubin was victorious over fellow American and fifth seed Mackenzie Macdonald 6-4, 7-5. A wild card, the Rockville Centre product, fell behind 4-2 in the first set before rattling off five straight games to go ahead a set and 1-0. Stretching his lead to 4-1, Rubin watched as his countryman pulled even at 5-5 before winning the last two games.
Tomic, Lorenzi, Klahn highlight other winners
The best match of the day was played between Bernard Tomic and eighth seed Denis Istomin with the Aussie coming out on top 7-6 (5), 4-6, 7-6 (5) in exactly two hours. Elsewhere, in a battle of veterans, second seed Paolo Lorenzi rallied from an early break down in both sets to defeat Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 7-5, 6-3.
Third seed Bradley Klahn overcame alternate Marcelo Arevalo 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (3), who appeared to hurt himself towards the end of the match, fourth seed Jason Jung had no problem with wild card Gary Kushnirovich, winning 6-3, 6-2, Mitchell Krueger upset sixth seed Dudi Sela 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 while seventh seed Danilo Petrovic advanced after Peter Polansky retired down 6-0, 3-0.
The matchups for the final qualifying round see Soeda face Tomic, Rubin battle Lorenzi, Jung square off with Krueger and Klahn taking on Petrovic.