Kim, Dent Finally Team Up, With Near-Perfect Results

Granted, Kevin Kim and Taylor Dent didn’t exactly blow away the Woodies--they defeated qualifiers Trent Aaron and Witold Cudny, 6-1, 6-0, Wednesday in the first round of the $25,000 USTA Calabasas Challenger.

But after a 45-minute display of nearly flawless doubles, the question was obvious: Why, after three years together on the men’s pro tour, have the two Orange County residents never hooked up?

“Kevin’s too big-time for me,” Newport Beach’s Dent said with a huge grin.

“I’ve asked him before, but he always turns me down,” Fullerton’s Kim said sarcastically.

Seriously, both players are too serious about their singles games to worry about doubles. Dent, who turns 20 in three weeks, is ranked 163 in singles and 215 in doubles. Kim, 22, is ranked 131 in singles and 184 in doubles.

“If we do well in doubles, it’s just a bonus and it helps us get our games a little sharper,” said Kim, who led Sunny Hills High to two Southern Section titles in the mid 1990s.

Kim and Dent tried to team up before, but scheduling and timing have always been bad. But Wednesday, their timing was impeccable. Kim, fresh off a hard-fought second-round singles victory over Justin Bower of South Africa earlier in the day, was on top of his game from the first point. Dent apparently got all the unforced errors from a first-round singles loss out of his system. He was pin-pointing returns and volleys like he had played doubles his whole life.

After Cudny fought off a break point in his first service game to even the set at 1-1, he and his partner didn’t have another game point.

“We both served well, we both returned well,” Kim said. “If we can do that, we’ll do all right.”

But Dent didn’t want to read too much into the victory, knowing the second-seeded team of Paul Kilberry and Luke Smith of Australia are waiting today.

“There’s tougher draws than that,” Dent said.

Still, Dent and Kim acknowledged they played some nice, crisp tennis together.

“We know when to cover each other and when the other guy’s going to poach,” said Kim, who occasionally hits with Dent on tour. “We’re not going to be confused with each other.”

That showed Wednesday. Neither player ever put the other in a bad position and there was little, if any, miscommunication.

“The way we play doubles is pretty straight-up,” said Dent, who won a Challenger doubles title in Urbana, Ill., this year with Mardy Fish. “We just smash the return low and try to cross. With our games, it ends up being that way. We both hit the ball pretty hard. There’s not a lot of feel involved.”

One impressive victory over a team of qualifiers doesn’t indicate much. But it does get Dent and Kim to thinking about their potential.

“If it became important, there’s no reason why we couldn’t play with the best of them,” Dent said.

“We serve well, we volley well.”

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Kim took two hours 10 minutes to defeat the 198th-ranked Bower, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (3), 6-3. He didn’t have a break point on Bower’s serve until the eighth game of the third set. Once he broke Bower’s serve to go up 5-3, he finished off the match by holding serve.

“He really fights,” Kim said. “He’s not going to give you many chances to break and he came up with some good passing shots. Sometimes the match in a final could be easier than the second round. You just have to be ready every time.”

Kim will play Andre Sa of Brazil in the quarterfinals Friday.

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Ryan Moore, a USC junior and former Servite High star, is ranked seventh in the NCAA in doubles with Nick Rainey. But Wednesday, Moore and Rainey were no match for Cecil Mamiit and Glenn Weiner, losing 6-3, 6-2.

“These guys make less errors and they go for higher percentage shots than the college guys,” said Moore, who was given a wild card into the main doubles draw. “But it’s nice to come out here. It shows you where you need to be. And there’s a level of professionalism here that you don’t see in college tennis.”