Home interest peters out as game duo, Cluskey and O'Brien, make their exit

IRISH OPENALL THE remaining battles will be fought out between overseas contenders in the Shelbourne ATP Irish Open Challenger.

Yesterday at the Fitzwilliam Club, the last remaining home players in contention made their exit when James Cluskey and Colin O'Brien succumbed to Briton Jonathan Marray and Denmark's Frederik Nielsen on a 6-3, 6-4 scoreline.

The Ireland Davis Cup pair battled valiantly and demonstrated excellent shot-making ability, but it was always going to be a major struggle against two players of the calibre of their number four seeded opponents. Marray's singles ranking has slipped to 1598, but he was placed as high as 215 in August 2005, and Nielsen is at 306 in the singles world list.

"I had to have shoulder surgery last year, and I was out of tennis for 11 months, and only got back last May," explained Sheffield-native Marray, who yesterday also knocked out number four seed Kristian Pless, of Denmark, in the second round of the singles.

The visiting pair broke Cluskey's serve in the second game en route to wrapping up the first set. Each pairing broke twice in the second set, before a break on Cluskey's serve in the ninth game preceded Marray holding to 15 to close out the match.

Despite the result, the Dublin pair were upbeat afterwards, feeling that playing against two quality players would stand them in good stead if they are reselected for Ireland's Davis Cup tie against the Ukraine, at the same venue on July 18th-20th.

"We knew we were going to up against it," said O'Brien. "They are both very good doubles players. The rain delay at 4-all and 30-all in the second set when James was serving certainly didn't help us.

"We've only been playing consistently together since the Davis Cup tie against Morocco, and we feel we're improving all the time." Cluskey remarked: "I thought we played very solid and we returned well. But Nielsen's returns were unbelievable, and Marray is very good at the net.

"The more we play together the better our understanding becomes, and I feel have the potential to become a very good team."

Meanwhile, Conor Niland's conqueror, Alexander Slabinsky of Britain, failed to build on his 6-4, 6-4 success, succumbing 6-7 (2/7), 4-6 to Sweden's Bjorn Rehnquist.