Shankwatch Ireland – Week 25

It’s been a busy week for tennis in Ireland with some guy called Niland getting a lot of attention for winning some matches at some tournament in London.

The tournament is quite a prestigious one apparently but it doesn’t ring a bell.

Anyway, given all the press he’s received I think Niland is now a bit too mainstream for Shank Tennis and I’d be afraid I’d lose my indie underground credentials if I blogged about him.

For that reason, I’m going to skip him and shine a light on what the other Irish players got up to in the last week.

I’m doing this even though none of them are good enough to beat an 11-year-old girl.

This was supposed to be a weekly feature but given my usual Sunday hangovers and general laziness that turned out to be a pipe dream.

With the Davis Cup tie against Tunisia just two weeks away it seems like a good time to get back on track.

So what did the other Irish players get up to this week? In truth, not a lot.

James McGee has been in impressive form lately, reaching a Futures final in Spain and a Challenger quarter-final in Milan but it seems that effort caught up on him this week when he bowed out to Egyptian Mohammed Safwat in three tiebreak sets in the first round of the $15k Futures in Morocco.

Daniel Glancy was also in Morocco but lost in the last round of qualifying to Goncalo Falcao of Portugal.

I’m not sure what happened then. Possibly some dodgy tajine or a case of let’s-get-the-fuck-out-of-here-itis as the pair were fed a double bagel in doubles by team who were dumped out in the next round.

Sam Barry and James Cluskey were also in Morocco, albeit Melilla, the part of Morocco owned by Spain (kind of like a reverse Gibraltar).

Barry qualified for the main draw but received a bum deal when he was paired against world number 307 and blogging sensation Harri Heliovaara and lost in three sets.

Cluskey also played qualifying but fell to Spaniard Juan Jose Leal Gomez in the second round.

Cluskey and Barry then teamed up for doubles and received a first round bye but bowed out in the quarter-final to Spanish twins Jaime and Javier Pulgar-Garcia 7/5 6/4.

While the non-Niland men didn’t have a lot to shout out it was a different story for the one of the country’s most promising girls, with 16-year-old Sinead Lohan taking the title in the Grade 4 ITF junior event in Riga.

Well done to her. I’m just left wondering if she could beat that 11-year-old Russian…