Irish hopes obliterated after defeat of Barron

IRELAND'S forlorn prospects of a dramatic recovery in the Davis Cup tie against Belarus were clinically obliterated with the defeat of Scott Barron at the first hurdle of the reverse singles before a packed house at Riverview yesterday.

Barron said he "wasn't at the races" following a demoralising straight sets drubbing, 6-1 6-2 7-6 by Alexander Shvets who, with a world ranking of 324, is 95 places higher than the Irish number one.

Barron said Shvets's serve and forehands had hurt him a lot. He obviously had forgotten about the damage Shvets had inflicted with his devastating net skimming backhand slice that denied the Irish player the pace he so badly needed.

Eoin Collins, the wise old owl of the Irish party and chosen to replace the injured Owen Casey in the always unlikely event of a fifth deciding rubber, watched Shvets' strategy against Barron and commented: "He is killing him with that slice. The one thing Scott needs is pace to work off".

Shvets was honest enough to say be was tiring, an obvious legacy of the marathon against Casey on Friday night, just before it ended. In this context, he figured that putting Barron away in the third set tie break was an important factor in his win.

Barron had chances to win the third set, especially when he contrived his second break point of the match in the fourth game, for 3-1. His unforced errors off the ground at this crucial stage just about summed up his lack of real conviction.

Shvets' consistency showed him to have a better knowledge of the court's geometry. By comparison, Barron's range was badly adrift.

Shvets, a 24 year old who plays for much of the time in Germany, dropped only two points for his service games in the opening set, which he pocketed in a record 23 minutes. He broke Barron in the second and fifth games for a 6-1 start.

Barron's confidence seemed to be cut off at the mains when he double faulted and lost the opening game of the second set to 15.

Shvets' authority on serve was further enhanced when he held the next game to love for 2-0.

The Irish man showed his frustration in the following game when he earned a warning for court violation. He held serve here, only to be pounded to love by Shvets' aces and service winners in the fourth, to slump 1-3.

At this stage, Barron was beginning to smile at his own errors. He lost out after saving five break points in the seventh game (2-5) and muffed his first break point in the match with yet another inexcusable ground shot. Shvets capitalised to take the second set in 35 minutes, 6-2.

Egged on the by the noisy crowd, Barron showed good levels of defiance in the third. It went to a tiebreak, won on the 11th point by Shvets in just over two hours.

Ireland's downward slide began with defeat in the doubles on Saturday, Tommy Hamilton and Barron losing to Maxim Mirnyi and Vladimir Voltchkov 6-4 7-6 (7-5) 6-3. That particular exercise gave the visitors a 2-1 advantage.

After Shvets had made sure of victory against Barron, Eoin Collins played a dead singles against Mirnyi, the winner by 7-5 6-3. Ireland now face a relegation tie with Greece, losers to Finland yesterday, in July. Belarus will face Finland.

Big-serving Australian Mark Philippoussis fired 19 aces on his way to a 7-6 1-6 6-4 victory over Spain's Alex Corretja in the final of the $425,000 Munich Open clay court event yesterday.

The 20 year-old eighth seed had Corretja cowering under a barrage of bullet serves on a surface that normally would have favoured the baselining Spaniard, seeded six.

"All you can do is stand and admire it," 23 year old Corretja said. "You feel like a mouse out on the court."

It was a first clay tournament victory for Philippoussis, who has the world's fastest serve at 228 kilometres per hour.

And after serving his 90th ace of the week to clinch the match, he said: "I've served fantastically well this week and today, every ball hit the spot.

The Australian, however, will not be competing in next week's German Open in Hamburg because of the weather. "It's too cold there," he said.

. France's Cedric Pioline won the second ATP Tour tournament of his career yesterday, beating hometown favourite Bohdan Ulihrach 6-2 5-7 7-6 in the Czech Open.

Pioline, who lost his first nine finals before taking the Copenhagen Open in 1996, started well, breaking the Czech's first service game on his way to taking the set.