Liggan on cusp of US Open debut

On Tennis: When Ireland assembled a Federation Cup team earlier in the year, they knew before a ball was hit that, a little like the men's Davis Cup side, also from earlier in the season, a critical mass of experience was not to hand.

One of those players Ireland would have welcomed to the squad was out and about working hard to get her world ranking down to a level whereby the Grand Slam qualification events would be within grasp and a place in the main draws a possibility.

Kelly Liggan has not shown her head around these shores very much this year, but look over the flurry of tournaments she has contested worldwide and you'll see the Irish girl has come into some sort of form since August began. And well timed it is too.

This week Liggan is in New York for the qualifying week of the US Open. Not since the Davis Cup player Peter Clarke was a match point away from finding his way into the main draw of the event in 2003 has Ireland come close to having anyone mix it with the top 132 players in the world.

But Liggan is in New York after a frantic-enough eight months during which she has travelled from Spain to the US, to Canada and back to Europe for tournaments ranging in prize funds from 20,000 to 155,000. While the bigger events - in Estoril, Prague, Rabat and Istanbul - did not go so well for her, they may well have contributed to her success in the two recent events in Portugal. Both have given her a windfall of confidence, money and world ranking points.

Vigo and Coimbra have easily been Liggan's most successful two weeks of the year. They have actually been the most successful two weeks of any Irish player for quite some time and have had a significant role in her incremental rise in the world rankings from 287th in January to a current 241st. It has taken 20 events to get Liggan to the stage where a top-200 position by the end of the year is not an unreasonable goal. Even if she falls short in that, the title wins of the Spanish-based player over the first two weeks of August have pushed her well ahead of the rest of the Irish players.

While she lost in the qualifying round in the €112,000 event in Prague and in the round of 32 in Rabat and the 155,000 event in Istanbul in the following weeks, June and July were kinder. A final in Madrid, where she lost to the tournament's second seed, Maria-Jose Martinez Sanchez, was a hint of things to come.

A quarter-final in a tournament in Les Contamines, France, and then victory over the 419-ranked Laura Thorpe in Viga paved the way for her best run of results. Viga was followed by an even more impressive 6-0, 7-6(7) win over the 203-ranked Monica Niculescu in the Coimbra tournament, while Liggan also beat the 140-ranked Arantxa Parra Santonja 6-0, 6-0 at the quarter-final stage.

What marks the wins as exceptional is how Liggan hung in during an early start to the year that could be mildly described as difficult. Although she played her way to one early semi-final, in Rockford, USA, back in February and another in Florida in March, she had been relentlessly losing in the early rounds or in the qualification events for most of the early part of the year. In her first 16 events, she departed at the round of 32 or in qualification 12 times. To bounce back from that difficult run shows, if anything, the mettle of the player.

Back-to-back wins on tour are not easy to come by even at the 20,000-event level. While the main qualification draw of the US Open is a significant step up, the 27-year-old's form and success on hard courts (both wins were on hard court) augurs well for a decent effort this week in New York.

Liggan was not listed to play yesterday in the first-day of qualification, which runs till Friday. The US Open proper, the final Grand Slam event of the year, begins on Monday and if Liggan holds recent form, there could be an Irishwoman playing in Flushing Meadow next week.

 Last chance for hopefuls

While Liggan's recent success's in Portugal have been encouraging, Ireland's tour-hardened player will not be in Ireland for the Danone Masters finals, which take place in Castleknock Tennis Club on August 31st.

The last of the 12 qualifying competitions take place this weekend at Co Wicklow Lawn Tennis Club, which gives those players placed near the bottom of the eight-person cut-off point a chance to make a case for inclusion.

The men's series remains quite tight at the top, the most consistently good home player, Colin O'Brien, topping the table with 900 points. Stephen Nugent closely follows him on 720 points, with Conor Niland in third place with 580.

The women's event is not such a close affair, the experienced Yvonne Doyle having accumulated almost twice as many points as her nearest rival, Mariana Levova. Federation Cup player Doyle has 1,320 points and must be favourite to carry off the title given the Bulgarian-born teenager Levova is back on 700 points. Ann Marie Hogan holds third position with 370 points.