Dublin and Cork's best tennis prospects combined to give the Irish game a tangible boost at Riverview yesterday when Stephen Nugent of Malahide and Elsa O'Riain of Kilcully carried off the under-18 titles in the ITF K-Swiss world ranking event.
The talented Irish players were not particularly surprising winners over their British and German opponents but the clear-cut margins of victory in each case were not really anticipated.
Both finals were played indoors to avoid rain interruptions. Nugent took just 42 minutes to dispatch Philip Marx, 6-3 6-1. O'Riain didn't take a minute longer to dismantle the challenge of Ruth Barnes from Cambridge, the number four seed.
Nugent stamped his authority from the start racing away to a 3-0 lead. The unseeded German, who is only 15, was pleased to have advanced so far. In contrast to Nugent, his first serves were wayward and there were double faults to prove it. Nugent then dropped only three points on serve in the second set.
Ruth Barnes said that Elsa O'Riain had "improved greatly since I beat her in straight sets last year."
O'Riain was unruffled when her serve was broken in the first game. The English girl's serve showed flaws and the break back came for O'Riain to level at 3-3. Barnes became more brittle and she had three double faults in the 10th game which she lost to love to hand the set on a plate to O'Riain. Then the match was finished off in 17 minutes.
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