Vietnamese tennis player Nguyen Hoang Thien, 16, made encouraging performances at the 2011 Tennis Central 18 & U ITF Summer Championships in New Zealand after he defeated two rivals to clinch a spot to the 1/16 round.

The fifth seed Thien Tuesday won Bradley Mousley of Australia 6-3 6-1 in the second round. In the previous day, he had defeated host player Pratt Keerasuntonpong 6-3 6-3 in the opening round.

He is scheduled to take on the 12th seed of New Zealand Cameron Norrie in the third and 1/16 round today. The six-day tournament is slated to close on February 12 in Wellington.

Thien now ranks 241st according to the latest world ranking table released on Monday by the International Tennis Federation.

In a talk with Tuoi Tre on Tuesday, his father Nguyen Ngoc Minh said the achievement is resulted from strong investment by family during the last six years.

He said he sent his son to attend training courses in the US in 2005, just two years after he started training tennis at his age of eight.

Training and competition abroad has cost Thien permanent life far away from home and had never enjoyed New Year festival with family during the last six years.

Family spent almost US$2 million for him to train abroad in a bid to excel him to one of top-class player in the world, Minh said.

Source: Tuoi Tre