Holding a torch for the Olympic Games

MOST OF the time it's a long, old haul on the professional tennis tour when your world cranking contains three digits. Another week, another tennis centre, another hotel and, inevitably, another tedious set of problems to be overcome.

For the majority of the game's professionals glamour is a speck of light at the end of a very long tunnel or merely to be dreamt about. The first round of a Grand Slam, a Davis Cup tie with one of the sport's really big stars or, a more recent addition to the list of tennis's glittering prizes, a chance to compete at the Olympic Games.

Of the multi millionaires who will be in London this weekend ahead of Monday's first round at Wimbledon players like Andre Agassi, Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Thomas Enqvist have yet to make it to an Olympic Games. For Ireland's Owen Casey, though, long accustomed to plying his trade amidst far more modest surroundings than the sport's household names, Atlanta will be Olympiad number three.

In Seoul and Barcelona Casey, along with Eoin Collins, represented his country at the world's greatest sports spectacular and yet, when he reflects on it now, both trips sort of passed him by. In each case his priorities lay elsewhere with ranking tournaments and the precious points that go with them appearing more important than an event in which he had little chance of prospering.

In 1988 the Dubliner arrived at the Games just two days before they get underway and no sooner had he made his exit, than his bags were packed and away with as much speed and as little cost as possible.

Four years later and Spain presented a similar sort of scenario. A summer tour schedule built around probable rather, than possible results meant an early start the morning after his competitive involvement had ended at the Games. The Olympics were suddenly yesterday's dream and reality was back in the form of "qualies" in some distant tour event. Not this time.

"I vowed to myself that if I did make Atlanta it would be different. The last two times I had to get out as soon as possible and I ended up watching the closing ceremonies on TV somewhere so I said to myself that if I did make Atlanta I'd try to go over with the team and come back with the team for the experience.

"In the past there was always pressure. In Seoul I was young and at college in America and there were strict orders for me to get out and in Barcelona there were tournaments. Now it's different. I know I might miss a tournament here or there, but I can play tournaments every week of the year, the Olympics is only once every four years and I'm going to make the most of the opportunity this time."

Things have gone well for him since he came back from a long injury in late 1994 with his ranking steadily recovering thanks to some good tournament performances, particularly in doubles, and continued financial support from ACCBank.

Even he admits, however, that the opportunity to play in Atlanta came as something of a surprise. The 26 year old has been granted a wild card to play with Scott Barron in the doubles but only the sort of convoluted selection procedures that the Olympic Games tends to throw up could have resulted in the pair being invited to the event.

Casey currently holds a ranking of 230 for doubles (he is 320th on the singles list) while his prospective partner, Barron is holds rankings of 536 and 520 respectively - hardly the sort of numbers that would one might expect to be crunched into a place in a 32 draw.

Yet the pair who have only ever partnered each other once before in a competitive match will walk out onto court in late July when their opponents could quite easily be the world's leading partnership of Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde from Australia, Germany's Becker and Stich or a couple of the best Americans. It could turn out to be an all took brief outing in the blistering sun for the rank outsiders from Ireland.

"I'd like us to win one game at least but it's difficult to know how we can do until the draw is made. It's a completely open draw so you could get the best players in the first round but if we get a good draw then hopefully we can get at least one victory.

On the face of it even that, sort of limited optimism would hardly appear to be justified by the Irishmen's almost complete lack of experience together but this is something that Casey takes in his stride.

"We know each other well. Each other's strong points and weaknesses and there will be chances to get in some practice time together over the next few weeks so we shouldn't have any problems like that," he says.

Neither will they have any particular difficulties coming to terms with the quality of opponents that they face in the event. The Olympics are just another tournament.

"Of course they're special. Words can't describe the feeling you get at the opening ceremony. There's something like 15,000 athletes in a world of how many billions and you have managed to be one of those 15,000. It's very emotional, a feeling I'll never forget but if you take somebody like Sampras who only plays Grand Prix and Grand Slam events, he wouldn't even entertain the thought of playing in something where the prize money is less that, say, $850,000, and he has to be completely prepared for every tournament that he plays in.

"How many times would Sonia O'Sullivan run in really big races each year, 10 times? In tennis you're playing a lot more than that so you can't build going out on court in the Olympics up so much. It would be crazy. I saw a television programme with Michael Johnson recently and he was saying that to him it was important but he treated it just the same, another day at the office et cetera et cetera. That's the professional way.

Taking the time away from the circuit to savour the experience of what may well be his last Games will cost him valuable ranking points and, therefore, places on the ladder while last year's highly productive autumn means that there are plenty more points to defend between September and December.

"I'll have to work hard but I don't care, I can worry about my ranking for years to come this is only going to last a couple of weeks and I'm going to enjoy it."