Moving On Up

After years of spinning his wheels on the pro tennis tour, UCLA’s Kevin Kim has finally found some traction.

Starting with the first round Friday, he will go directly into the main draw of the Pacific Life Open at Indian Wells, one of the sport’s prestigious Tennis Masters Series tournaments. Usually, by Friday he would have already had two days of grinding through qualifying rounds just to get there.

Now, after years of battling, and failing, to be among the top 150 in the world, he will go to the desert ranked 64th, heady stuff for the 26-year-old seven years removed from his one season as a UCLA player.

This is still new territory for Kim, who grew up in Southern California and lives in Newport Coast. Before this year’s Australian Open, he had played in three U.S. Opens, getting a wild-card invitation each time and losing in the first round each time. He also made his way through the qualifying at last year’s French Open, also losing in the first round of the main draw.

But when the entry list had closed for this year’s Australian, he had worked his way into the top 100 and went directly into the main draw, where he finally took advantage of his chance by winning two matches and pushing former Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson of Sweden to five sets in the round of 32 before losing.

That meant that the so-called “king of the challengers,” who had survived for seven years on the lean points and money he was able to win on the second-tier pro circuit, had pocketed $35,145 in one event, more than a third of what he’d made in his best previous season, 2004, when he totaled $99,345.

To date in ‘05, he has played six events, been beaten by No. 31 Johansson, No. 21 Vince Spadea and No. 14 Tommy Haas and has won $86,385. If Kim wins two rounds at Indian Wells, he would earn $17,000 and surpass his best year of earnings. Before this season, Kim’s career prize money was $427,294.

“I’ve just been out there, grinding, and it has started to pay off,” he said recently. “Going through the qualifications week after week can just get brutal.”

Even with his latest surge, Kim escaped Indian Wells’ qualifying by a whisker. When the cutoff date for entries arrived six weeks ago, Kim’s ranking wasn’t quite high enough to get him in. The tournament takes the top 79 players on the ATP Tour’s entry list, then adds five wild cards and 12 qualifiers for the 96 spots.

Wild cards went to James Blake, a U.S. Davis Cup player coming back from a series of strange and serious injuries last year; Australian Mark Philippoussis, two-time Grand Slam event finalist who lives near San Diego; plus promising young Americans Alex Kuznetsova and Donald Young and the top junior in the world last season, Gael Monfils of France.

After his second-round defeat in the Tennis Channel Open in Scottsdale, Ariz., the last week in February, he was still five spots shy of getting into the Indian Wells draw. But dropouts by two higher-ranked players Monday allowed him to squeeze into the draw. That means two more days of practice and two fewer days of do-or-die pressure, both huge luxuries for Kim.

It also means that the gamble he took by turning pro after UCLA’s 1996-97 season finally is looking good.

“I have no regrets,” Kim said. “I have learned a lot and played on a lot of different levels. I wanted to be a pro tennis player, and I was having such a good time at UCLA, both in school and with the team, that had I stayed another year, I would have stayed all four. And that would have really put me behind now.”

In his biggest victory, he beat former French Open winner Juan Carlos Ferrero last fall. Indian Wells is another opportunity for Kim, because there will be no shortage of players of that caliber there.

This time, he is rested and ready for the grind.