TENNIS
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Globetrotting tennis whiz Nicolas Meister has put a mid-year injury scare behind him and is ready to set Wollongong's Beaton Park courts alive over the next 12 days.
Meister, 25, spent time in the casualty ward earlier this year while recovering from a shoulder injury.
The time off didn't help his ATP ranking, sliding from a career-best 305 in February to sit at 360 on the men's singles table.
He did jump up seven spots, however, thanks to an impressive performance at Traralgon last week.
Meister lost to 174th-ranked Luke Saville in two sets in the first tournament at Traralgon, then reached the second round of the second tournament and lost to Benjamin Mitchell (ranked 264).
"It was an OK result, nothing special but I got a win, I guess," Meister said.
"I started the year off pretty well, then half-way through, I had some injuries to deal with.
"So I've kind of started getting back into it the last couple of weeks ..0hs. I'll try to finish the year strong then we'll see, reassess in January."
There's not much time to rest for Meister as he chases a big pay day on the ATP world tour.
In 2014 alone, he has competed in tournaments in Hawaii, Panama, Dallas, Mexico, China, Thailand and now Australia.
Following his straight sets win over Darren Polkinghorne in the first round at Traralgon, Meister is hungry for more success in Wollongong.
Seeded fifth for the Futures, he will kick off his campaign against China's Yan Bai in round one of the main draw.
"I want to get some wins under my belt, play a lot of matches and hopefully make a run in one of these tournaments," Meister said.
Meister has played most of his fellow main draw opponents before on tour but wasn't prepared to single any out as potential title threats for this week's Futures tournament.
"You pretty much see all these players, these weeks go by pretty fluidly and all these players go to the same events," he said.
"There's 52 weeks in a year, [we're] playing about 27 weeks a year, you're seeing all these guys every week pretty much.
"I've met most of these guys the last two weeks in Traralgon, the ones I didn't already know.
"Lot of familiar faces."
Meister has been running around on a tennis court for as long as he can remember.
There was a tennis club just a stone's throw away from his family home growing up in California, and he later spent four years playing tennis at UCLA college in Los Angeles.
