Japanese left-hander Arata Onozawa ousted Cambodian Davis Cup pivot Bun Kenny 7-5, 6-1 in the first round of the $10,000 ITF Men’s Futures tournament for the Ford Cup at the National Training Center yesterday.

While the local interest was riveted on this Court 1 encounter with nearly 50 boys and girls from Don Bosco vociferously rooting for Kenny, a high-intensity drama was playing out on the adjacent court where Thailand’s Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul was scripting a shock win over fourth-seeded big serving German Robin Kern.

Eventually the Thai teenager, who had come through the qualifiers, sent the 2012 GLF Tep Khunah Trophy winner crashing out of the first round in straight sets 6-4, 7-5.

In a first set full of merited baseline exchanges, Kenny fought his 25-year-old rival on equal terms.

Kenny, who helped Cambodia retain their Davis Cup Asia Oceania Group III status in Dubai two months ago, had several chances to take control of the set but when it came to crunch points it was the Japanese left-hander who showed greater resilience.

Having missed several promising openings to grab a break more than once, Kenny saw himself under pressure to stay in the set.

At times unsure on his feet, and unable to match his rivals consistency, the local man surrendered the first set.

The second proved to be a total blow out.

In other first-round matches, Indonesian topliner Christopher Rungkat raced away to a 6-1, 6-2 win over Robin Olin of Sweden while Harry Meehan of Great Britain rebounded from a set down to beat Colin Van Beem of Netherlands 4-6, 6-3, 6-0. Third-seeded Shuichi Sekiguchi of Japan was too classy for wildcard entry from Srilanka Dineshkanthan Thangarajah who went down 6-1, 6-1.

Winner of the $15,000 event at the same venue in 2011, Danai Odomchoke of Thailand, comfortably beat Patrick Davidson of the US 6-2, 6-0.

Two players from South Korea also made it to the second round. Min Kyu-song put out China’s Bowen Ouyang 6-4, 6-1 while Dylan Seong Kwan-kim had to work a lot harder for his 6-4, 6-4 victory over Chieu Wu-wang

of Taiwan.