Brisbane QLD, Australia, 30 December 2013 | AAP

Australian teenager Thanasi Kokkinakis defeated China’s Di Wu in his Brisbane International qualifying match on Monday to reach the main draw of the Australian Open warm-up tournament.

The US Open junior finalist and world No.628 won 6-1 6-4 to join compatriots Lleyton Hewitt, Matt Ebden, Sam Groth, Nick Kyrgios and James Duckworth in the main draw.

The victory came 24 hours after the 17-year-old Kokkinakis upset Kazakhstan’s top-100 player Andrey Golubev to advance to the final round of qualifying.

Kokkinakis, dubbed Australia’s “next big thing”, reached this year’s Australian Open boys’ singles finals, losing to countryman and fellow prodigy Kyrgios.

The South Australian suffered a stress fracture in his back during that final, severely disrupting the first half of his 2013 season.