Munster in the ascendant

Tennis: Munster players are poised for a memorable campaign in the Irish Open Junior Championships at Fitzwilliam this week, writes Pat Roche. It all points to an unusual clean sweep at under-18 level for the southern province with top seeds Conor Niland and Elsa O'Riain ready do the business despite the high-class field.

Both Niland and O'Riain are fresh from banking up ITF world ranking points in Dublin and Cork. Niland was first into the fray for the Irish title last evening and he was duly impressive, beating Richie Martin convincingly.

Mark Finnegan is the number two seed in a field that includes Timo Barry and David O'Connell.

Top seed O'Riain, however, cannot be too happy with reigning champion Catherine Lynch lurking at two in the bottom half.

Tennis: Pete Sampras hit what may prove to be the defining shot of this summer in the first set tie-break of the ATP Championship final when he served a ball which burst strings in Pat Rafter's racket and hurtled out the other side like a missile in a Disney cartoon.

It was a normal Sampras delivery, but its freakish outcome brought a mid-west holler from the crowd and symbolised a match in which he recaptured the title from Rafter with a 7-6, 6-3 win and became a stronger favourite to regain the US Open title from the Australian.

If Sampras does, he will beat Roy Emerson's record of 12 grand slams and add another extraordinary statistic to a collection of records that includes six year-end world number one rankings and 272 weeks in top spot.

Boxing: Private Michael Kelly of the 8th Infantry Battalion FCA took the gold medal in the light-welterweight division at the world military games in Zagreb. Kelly defeated Chudakov Maxim of the Russian Army 6-4 on points in the final. His goal brings to four the total number of medals won by the Defence Forces in this competition which involves 7,000 competitors from 76 countries. Bronze was won by Private Jim Phillips, Private Ronan Maher and airman Thomas Sheahan.