James McGee turned on the style on his debut in the US Open qualifying as he overpowered Chilean opponent Gonzalo Lama in a mere 39 minutes on Wednesday.
In the first ever meeting of the two players, the Irish number one fired in eight aces and broke Lama's serve on five occasions from nine opportunities as as he coasted to 6-1 6-1 victory to nail down a second round place at Flushing Meadows.
Lama, number one in the Chilean rankings, couldn’t have hoped for a more encouraging start to the contest, holding his serve to love in the opening game.
But that proved to be a false dawn for the 21-year-old who is ranked 202, only seven places behind the 195-ranked 27-year-old Dubliner in the ATP singles ladder.
After holding to 15 in his opening service game, McGee broke Lama to 15 in the third game, and after holding to love for a 3-1 lead, he broke again to surge 4-1 in front.
In the final two games of the first set the Castleknock man dropped only one point, holding to love in the final game.
Louk Sorenson crashed out on Tuesday night, losing 4-6 6-3 6-4 to Portugal's Gastao Elias.
