Rising tennis junior eyes world's top 100 | Canterbury Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Canterbury

Christchurch tennis player Jordan Kelly-Houston aims to break into the world junior top 100 this year after two overseas tournament wins in the holidays.

Seventeen while he was away, Kelly-Houston got the perfect birthday present with victory in international junior tournaments in Lautoka, Fiji, and Darwin.

In his third tournament on the trip, he reached the semis of another Darwin event.

They were results he never expected against Australasia's junior stars.

"My ranking going into it was 206 in 18 and under in the world," he said.

"I expected to get around 150 but it's improved to 118. So it was a great trip - and I've still got another year in 18 and under!"

The holiday successes give him three international tournament victories this year after success in Wellington early on.

The Christchurch Boys' High sixth former has another four international tournaments lined up later this year in Lautoka again, then Osaka and two in Beijing.

And next year he wants to really make a mark in world junior tennis by competing in the main draw of the four junior Grand Slams - Australian open, Wimbledon, French open, and US open.

If he can get his ranking down to the top 100 by the end of this year, it should get him into the Aussie open.

The New Zealand under-16 boys champion and also ranked in the top two in under-18s, Kelly-Houston wants a pro tennis career, but like many other talented junior sportsmen had to make a decision on the sport he would follow.

He's also a talented ice hockey player, representing New Zealand at under-14 level, but had to give that up as his tennis career started to flourish on Academy coach Glenn Wilson's talent production line.

Kelly-Houston started playing senior interclub as Burnside Park's No.1 last summer, and next year hopes to get into the first level of senior tournaments on a bigger stage.

As well as tennis training with Wilson, he's started going to the gym two or three times a week to build up his upper body and legs for power and for injury prevention.

Wilson predicts that with older players moving out Kelly-Jordan could even be in the world top 50 by year's end.

He played to his potential and peaked at the right time in Fiji and Darwin, and it had given him a new sense of confidence, he said. He was strong on forehand, serve, and movement, and now needed to keep working on developing match routines, between point routines, and moving forward more to the net, he said.

As well as Kelly-Houston's climb, Wilson has James Meredith 157th and Barrett Franks (unranked at the end of last year) at 240th in the world juniors.

Meredith was Canterbury's tennis player of the year this year after winning four international junior titles and the national under-18 singles. While local tennis is famous for the longevity of some stalwart players, thanks to Wilson's programmes its future is now firmly in the hands of youth.