Matsuoka turned professional in 1986. In 1989, he finished runner-up in the top-level tournament at
Wellington, and captured the doubles title in
Auckland. 1991 saw Matsuoka achieve his career-best Masters result, when he reached the quarter-finals of the
1991 Canada Masters in Montreal, beating
Michael Chang in a dramatic 3-set battle en route. In 1992, Matsuoka became the first Japanese player to win a singles event on the
ATP Tour when he captured the title in
Seoul. He was also runner-up at the prestigious grass court tournament at
Queen's Club that year, beating
Goran Ivanisevic and world no. 2
Stefan Edberg in earlier rounds before losing to
Wayne Ferreira in the final. Unsurprisingly, as a skilled grass-court player, Matsuoka's best performance at a
Grand Slam event came at
Wimbledon in
1995, where he reached the quarter-finals, beating
Karel Nováček,
Mark Knowles,
Javier Frana and
Michael Joyce before being knocked out by
Pete Sampras. Matsuoka won the first set tie-break but Sampras came back to win in four sets. Throughout the
1995 Tour, Matsuoka suffered from chronic muscle cramps. In February, during a match against
Joseph Lizardo at the
Davis Cup, he sustained an injury that required him to withdraw. At the
US Open of 1995, during the fourth set of his first round match against
Petr Korda, Matsuoka collapsed from severe cramping in his thighs which left him writhing in pain on the court for several minutes. The rules at the time meant that Matsuoka would have forfeited the match if he had gotten medical attention, so he was left to suffer until he was defaulted for delaying the match. The incident led to a change in the rules of professional tennis to allow players to receive medical treatment during matches. Matsuoka's career-high rankings were world No. 46 in singles (in 1992) and World No. 95 in doubles (in 1989). His career prize-money earnings totaled
$1,117,112. He retired from the professional tour in April 1998. ==Post-retirement==