Ireland still in with shout

Ireland's women's tennis team advanced their bid for group honours by beating Moldova 2-1 in the third round of the Federation Cup round robin series in Turkey yesterday.

But the joy of registering a second successive win in two days was somewhat tempered by the loss of the doubles after the opportunities were presented to Yvonne Flynn and Aoife O'Neill to complete the whitewash.

Team captain Peter Lowther places great significance on the doubles defeat, for the loss could prove very costly if, in the event of a tie at the end of the week, the calculator is brought into use to decide the group honours.

Gina Niland and Lesley O'Halloran once again performed with distinction in their singles victories.

"They both played really well," said Lowther, "but I am very disappointed with the doubles result. We had the winning of it and our girls were obviously good enough to win it, given the leads they created, but they just failed to close the match down."

Against Natalia Volcova and Elena Arabadji, the O'Neill-Flynn partnership won the first set on a tie break, led 4-1 in the second and 5-2 in the third.

Still, a showdown with unbeaten Georgia today remains an exciting prospect thanks to singles successes by Niland and O'Halloran.

Lowther was particularly impressed by both women girls. "Lesley is displaying untypical patience and is giving very little away. Gina is solid, no unforced errors and she is much fitter and able to run down a lot of ball. I see no reason why she would not be able to account for the top Georgian player," he said.

O'Halloran took two hours to see off the sticky challenge of Evghenia Ablovatchi after producing a sparkling first set performance to lay the basis for her 6-1 4-6 7-5 win.

Niland took a half an hour less to rebuff the challenge of Natalia Volcova.

"We still have a chance. It's a bit of a concoction at the moment. We could end up relying on other results, such as Moldova to take points off Estonia and then Estonia to beat Georgia on Saturday," Lowther said.

Federation Cup (in Turkey) - Third round - Singles: L O'Halloran bt E Ablovatchi 6-1 4-6 75, G Niland bt N Volcova 7-5 6-2. Doubles: A O'Neill and Y Flynn lost to Volcova and E Arabadji 7-6 4-6 5-7.