Feast begins for those who love game

Johnny Watterson On Tennis:For those who like to gorge themselves at the top table, Irish tennis provides plenty over the next three weeks. Fans whose eyes are bigger than their stomachs could well feel queasy between now and July 7th, when the Shelbourne Irish Open $50,000 Challenger comes to a climax in Fitzwilliam.

These next few weeks represent a great opportunity for those who enjoy watching tennis to see some of the best players from outside the top 100 in the world rankings. And while most of the faces will be new to the public, several of those that pass through Dublin and Limerick will certainly emerge in the near future as top-50 players and Grand Slam hopefuls.

The 22-year-old Serbian Janko Tipsarevic, who competed last year in Fitzwilliam, is one such serious prospect. This year he plays at Wimbledon as part of the Serbian invasion of the elite end of world tennis, having made it to the third round of Roland Garros, beating Russia's Marat Safin on the way, and finally losing in three sets to the ninth-best player in the world, Spain's Tommy Robredo.

But this week alone there are three championships taking place in Ireland. At Brookfield the $15,000 ITF Futures event has been running since Monday, as have the revived Irish Close in Donnybrook and the Ulster Championships. Some clash to be sure, but these are heady days.

From June 25th the Futures event rolls on from Brookfield to Limerick Lawn Tennis Club until July 1st, after which the cavalcade travels back to Dublin and Fitzwilliam for the biggest Irish tournament of the year.

The overriding factor for most through this frenzy of serves and volleys is that Wimbledon runs parallel for two of the weeks in question, which almost guarantees little media coverage in Ireland for what are arguably the most important three weeks of the summer.

But Ireland, like most countries outside the Masters Series (a league for the top players) and Grand Slam events, must defer to a global schedule. Irish tennis does not decide the dates of its international events; it is told what dates it can have, and to some extent it is grateful for the slots. Some of the players who arrive at Fitzwilliam, for example, do so because it is easily accessible and cheap to get to after they are knocked out in the first week of Wimbledon. So the timing does not diminish the quality of tennis here; rather it enhances it.

Wesley Moodie, a 2005 Wimbledon doubles champion, is scheduled to compete at Fitzwilliam.

Moodie and his doubles partner, the Australian Stephen Huss, created history in 2005 when they became the first pair to win a doubles title having come through the Wimbledon pre-tournament qualifiers.

The Durban native has a career-high doubles ranking of 17 and last year made it through to the third round of the main singles draw at the US Open.

The defending Irish champion Mischa Zverev, ranked 129th in the world, should also be returning to Dublin. He won the ATP Futures event in Brookfield in 2006, the week before his victory over Denmark's Kristian Pless in the Irish Open final.

Since then the German player has beaten the former world number one and former French Open champion Juan-Carlos Ferrero and the former Australian Open finalist Rainer Schüttler.

The 26-year-old Pless, who has career victories over Ivan Ljubicic, former Wimbledon finalist David Nalbandian and former world number one Gustavo Kuerten, is currently ranked number 82 on the ATP list and is top seed in Fitzwilliam.

He is another who is no stranger to Irish venues. As well as competing here last year, he won an ATP Futures event in Dublin in 2000 and represented Denmark in the Davis Cup in 2001.

Ireland's challenge is likely to come mainly from Davis Cup player and Irish number one Louk Sorensen and Limerick's Conor Niland, both of whom are full-time professionals and are ranked in the world's top 400, Sorensen at number 330 and Niland at 382.

The former Irish number one Peter Clarke, Davis Cup player John McGahon, and US Collegiate players James Cluskey, James McGee and Colin O'Brien are also involved, as are four other Irish players, who will be offered wild cards into the main draw in the coming weeks.

Former winners of the Irish Open include Tom Okker, Tony Roche and Rod Laver, who were the Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Roddick of their day.

We may be some way from attracting current players of that calibre to Dublin, but in terms of potential, maybe many of those who will soon arrive here are not quite as impossibly far off the uppermost tiers as some people might think.

Clay foundations on the way . . .

As the American challenge for the men's singles title at the French Open evaporated a few weeks ago in the first round, US Open winner Andy Roddick and Wimbledon winner Lleyton Hewitt bemoaned the fact US and Australian players do not grow up competing on clay.

Roddick's argument was that all the techniques learned playing on clay are vital for development later on. The bottom line was it's easier to learn when you're young than to adapt when you're mature. Sliding into shots is more difficult than it looks.

Encouragingly, Tennis Ireland hope to have six new courts installed at DCU this year, three hard and three clay.

The clay, it is hoped, will be available from October.

The clay will be an artificial type that is playable for six to eight months a year and also playable shortly after heavy rain. The product has been widely used in Belgium and France and to a limited extent in Britain.

When the DCU project, which will cost just under a1 million, is complete, there will be four indoor acrylic courts, three outdoor hardcourts and three outdoor clay courts. Belated perhaps, but it's an excellent start.