After falling in love with tennis a second time, Australia's Li Tu hopes the sport will reciprocate.
A decade after quitting as a burnt-out 18-year-old, Tu advanced to the second round of the Adelaide International on Tuesday.
Australia's Aleksandar Vukic and Adam Walton dipped out with first-round defeats at Memorial Drive, as did James Duckworth, who Tu defeated 6-1 7-5.
Tu used to fight Thanasi Kokkinakis for Australia's top junior status before walking away from the sport for eight years.
"I wasn't playing," he said.
"I did uni. I was a waiter. I was a delivery driver for a long time."
Tu returned after a stint coaching juniors rekindled his love for tennis and, after three years on the circuit, he's now preparing for a late bloom.
"I know I'm 28 but I only started playing it three years ago - I had no ranking three years ago," he said.
"I still feel so fresh.
"I did one year and on the Futures (tour), and then two years on Challenger (tour) and I feel like every year I'm learning more about myself, learning more about what this is about, and what it really takes.
"I feel very upbeat ... I feel really young on the tour, to be honest."
Ranked 179 in the world, Tu has set his sights on cracking the top 100 after experiencing the big time last year with a US Open clash against Carlos Alcaraz at the famed Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Tu took a set off the Spanish gun and collected his largest pay day, a $US100,000 ($A160,000) cheque, for his first-round loss after successfully qualifying.
"It was 27,000 people and not a whole lot can prepare you for that," he said.
"The most people I played in front of before that was maybe 3,000.
"I did a lot of visual visualisation the night before the morning of and but I still walk out and I'm like: 'Whoa ... it's still so big'."
Tu will meet French qualifier Benjamin Bonzi in the second round in Adelaide, and could yet run into Kokkinakis in the semi-finals.
Eighth seed Tomas Etcheverry will face Kokkinakis on Wednesday for a place in the last eight after the Argentine eliminated Australian wildcard Tristan Schoolkate 7-6 (10-8) 6-3 in Tuesday's feature night match.
But a trio of Australians fell on day three.
Vukic was beset by a batch of late errors in his three-set loss to Marcos Giron.
The American prevailed 6-2 3-6 6-3 as Vukic made 17 unforced errors in the last set.
Queenslander Walton suffered a straight-sets loss to Arthur Cazaux, the Frenchman winning 7-5 6-1.
Another Frenchman, world No.261 Manuel Guinard, also advanced with an upset 7-6 (7-4) 2-6 6-1 victory against Russia's world No.62 Roman Safiullin.
And American seventh seed Brandon Nakishima beat German qualifier Yannick Hanfmann 6-1 2-6 6-3.
