"He's stingy" said Owen Casey in deference to Scott Barron's tight game which helped fashion the result of yet another clash between Ireland's leading tennis players in the second round of the ITF Futures series at Rathmines yesterday.

Barron though, it must be said, has a few more strings to his bow and is never without motivation when confronted by Casey. He is the only Irish player to have beaten Casey in over 12 years.

"Given the circumstances it was no big surprise. He is playing better than ever and is full time on the circuits," said Casey, who was given a bad base line call (30-love) when attempting to stay in the match in the 10th game of the second set.

Casey slumped to a heavy 6-1 first set defeat but there were many deuce games in a closer pattern than the score would indicate. "He dosn't give any free points away anymore and was better than me on the big points," summed up Casey.

A recovery looked on the cards in the second set but Barron who returned well managed the only break of the set in the seventh game for 4-3. Significantly at this stage Casey was broken to love and a pumped up Barron served out with confidence for the match. "He (Barron) could win it now," assessed Casey.

Barron will battle for a semi-final place today against Yves Allegro of Switzerland. Allegro beat the only other Irishman, Sean Cooper, to have reached the second round.

Allegro was too difficult to break on serve and his angled ground shots were generally struck deep and with venom. Cooper, a final year student at the University of San Diego has, however, clearly gained in confidence since been given Davis Cup recognition a few weeks ago.

Meanwhile, Kristian Pless of Denmark, the world number one junior last year, went through to the quarter finals.