Tennis/Federation Cup News:A little bit of history was made this week when Tennis Ireland announced that 14-year-old Amy Bowtell will be part of the Irish Federation Cup team to face Estonia in Tallin, later this month
. If she is selected to play by team captain Gary Cahill, Bowtell will become the youngest player ever to represent Ireland in the Fed Cup competition.
Emma Murphy and Rachael Dillon both withdrew from the original selection - Murphy is suffering long-term wrist and knee injuries and Dillon, not for the first time in Federation and Davis Cup, has been refused leave to travel by her team coach at UCLA in California - allowing two players to step up, Bowtell and the more experienced Ann Mall.
Bowtell trains at the Tennis Ireland National Academy at DCU. There she has achieved another milestone in that she is the first Academy-based player to achieve senior representative honours. Although the young St Andrews College student turned 14 just last September, she is ranked 56 in Europe at under-16 level and also has a world ranking at under 18 of 636.
This season she won her first International Tennis Federation (ITF) tournament at under-16 level in Sweden, having reached the final of another ITF under-16 event two weeks previously.
"Yes, it was a bit of a surprise when I was told I was in the team," said the teenager. "I was due to play in a Grade One under-16 tournament in France that week but this will be a great experience for me.
"Gary (Cahill) told me that I was picked but he said that he didn't know if I would play or not. That will really depend on how things go in the matches."
Despite her young age, the Greystones player has been mapped now as a tennis talent for some years and has been consistently beating players who are much older. Her immediate hope is to be ranked in the world top 200 at under-16 level by the end of the year and that stage to be playing against adults in ITF Futures events at the $10,000 (€6,800) level.
"Before I won, I'd played in two finals before that so I didn't want to lose another one," she says. "That would have been a blow and the one I won went to 7-6 in the third set. I just kept on fighting.
"This summer I hope to get off to ITF tournaments and try to get a better ranking and maybe play one or two under-16 events. The girl I beat in the final was ranked in the top 10 at under-16 level (in Europe) so I was happy with that."
It is too early to know if the 6ft tall teenager will play her way to the top level of the sport. If she does she will be the first Irish players to do so in the modern age. But for now her focus is working on her ranking and maybe getting into the junior Grand Slam events next year. That alone would be significant progress.
"The option was to pick somebody like Amy who wants to be a professional tennis player," says Cahill.
"Her life is tennis and she is on track to be a very good player. She is with experienced players (Ann Mall, Yvonne Doyle and Kelly Liggan) and will learn more this week than she has for a while. But the main goal now is to keep her developing and to keep her motivation."
