GARETH Parker was excited about Wimbledon. He hadn't tickets for the championship but he was planning to follow it avidly on television. He didn't manage to see any matches. He was buried yesterday.

Tennis doesn't arouse that much interest in Belfast, but Gareth(23) loved the game passionately. He started playing when he was 14 and would spend summer holidays on the courts of Cavehill club, where his father was a coach.

He turned professional when he left school four years later and went to the tennis academy at the Riverview Club in Clonskeagh, Dublin. In return for professional coaching, he taught children how to play the game.

He lived with Winnie and Francis Rawstorne, who run the club. "He was like a second son to us," said Winnie. "When he first arrived in Dublin, he was a bit shy, but he eventually came out of his shell. Everybody loved him." His hero was Pete Sampras. Both men shared the same sunny temperament and good manners.

Gareth feared that he might be too old to make it big, but had decided to give it his all.

"He said that for the next few months he was really going to give tennis a go," said his best friend, Scott Barron (21), a member of the Irish Olympic team.

"He wanted to see if he could make a breakthrough." Gareth's career had been dogged by injury but he believed his luck was changing. And he was in love.

"He had just met this girl, Jane, a hairdresser, and he was crazy about her," said his father, Greer. "He said he had never felt like that for anyone before. We were looking forward to meeting her. She was in Paris when he was attacked".

Mr Parker said his son's only passions, apart from tennis, were "the guitar and Elvis Presley". "I would be on my electronic keyboard and Gareth would strum his guitar and we would play Beatles songs for hours," said his sister, Karen (25).

Gareth was ranked No 5 in Northern Ireland. He came home to Belfast last weekend to see his parents and four brothers and sisters. It was to be a farewell visit before he headed off to a tournament in the south of France.

The family ate dinner together on Friday evening and then Gareth went out for the night with an old school friend, Tommy Williamson.

The pair were attacked by a group of youths outside the Shaftesbury Inn on the Ant rim Road. Gareth received severe head injuries and died in hospital four days later.

"We just can't believe it," said Karen. "We don't know why anyone would want to hurt our brother. He wasn't a violent person. He would run a mile from a fight. He was a brilliant brother. We were really close. He was very protective of me even though he was two years younger.

There had been trouble in north Belfast on Friday night. Around 350 nationalists, protesting against an Orange Order march, were dragged off the Cliftonville Road by the RUC. Petrol bombs and missiles were thrown at police.

Gareth, a Catholic, was not interested in politics. But he expressed concern about the trouble, his sister said. "He told me not to venture into the city centre that night but to stay in "our own area. He went to the Shaftesbury Inn because it was only a few minutes up the road and he thought he'd be safe there."

Karen said her brother was in great humour before he left the house. "He was playing a CD, Captured by Brian Kennedy. He came into my room with a bottle of aftershave in his hand. He was splashing it all over his face. I joked that he was putting on far too much.

In the Shaftesbury Inn - a religiously mixed bar - Gareth and Tommy noticed a group of young men giving them hostile looks.

Karen believes they had confronted Tommy in another incident a few days earlier and recognised him. The pair decided to leave the bar, but were attacked as they waited for a taxi outside.

Gareth was badly beaten about the head. He fell and was accidentally struck by a car as he lay unconscious on the road.

HE was taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital where he was declared clinically dead after a brain scan on Tuesday.

His life support machine was turned off. He carried a donor card, and his heart, liver and kidneys were removed for transplant. "I'm glad they will give somebody else a better life," said Karen.

Residents in north Belfast have questioned the RUC's claim that the attack was not sectarian. A man from the loyalist Westland area has been charged with Garcth's manslaughter. He has expressed remorse about the incident.

Karen said the family does no want revenge. "We know that whoever did this will have it or their conscience for the rest of their life," she said. The Parkers have received sympathy letters from Protestants.

Mr Parker blames the politicians for the attack. "My son was killed because of their stupidity over the past 70 years. This happened because they sit at Stormont, being paid £100 a day but acting like primary schoolchildren."

The family has been shattered by the incident, he said. But his heart goes out to Jane, his son's girlfriend, most of all.

"Imagine losing someone when you are in the first flush of love? It's a horrible thing. That wee girl's life is ruined. She was with him for such a short time. At least we had him for 23 years."