JUST LIKE the old joke about the buses, badminton's recent hibernation is broken not one, but two, major domestic events over the coming week. The most prestigious of the calendar's local tournaments, the Leinster Open, gets under way this evening at Whitehall Road just one week ahead of the National Championships.
Traditionally the Leinster has attracted an interesting selection of players from over this year's event, sponsored for the 16th year in succession by Shires, has been hindered somewhat by a clash with the Austrian Open which, particularly in an Olympic year, has predictably proven to hold a far greater attraction.
In spite of the competition, however, the Terenure event has managed to assemble a number of strong English and Scottish playing with Tanya Groves, Alison Humby, Colin Haughton and Jim Mailer all in action over the two days. Although it is not their leading panel of players, there will be considerable interest in the small squad of Russian visitors.
Best of the Russians is likely to be Natalya Dyachkova who was runner up in the European Youth Championship last year. But Dyachkova has yet to establish herself in the senior game at home, where she is ranked 12, and is unlikely to be strong enough to seriously challenge the English pair of Groves and Humby.
Groves returns to Ireland after reaching the final of the Irish international championships in Belfast before Christmas. On recent form she looks the most likely winner of the singles title. Her international team mate, Humby, who has not always achieved her best form on visits to this country, may provide a powerful challenge if the duo both make it - safely through to tomorrow evening's final.
Former champion Mailer has ignored the lure of Vienna to compete here once again this weekend, but he finds himself seeded behind Colin Haughton of England. Haughton, having gradually established himself at the highest level over the last couple of years, did especially well on the British Grand Slam circuit in 1995.
Bruce Topping is the only Irish player to figure among the men's singles seeds but, while the Lisburnman will doubtless enjoy his crack at a couple of the best British players around, he will almost certainly have at least one eye on, next week's National Championships where he will face a stern challenge from both Michael Watt and Jim Colfor.
The latter, in particular, has plenty to prove just now after being controversially omitted from the Irish team for next month's Thomas Cup. But, while a potential meeting with Topping in this evening's quarter finals will be an interesting test for the Dubliner, a clash with Bustari Eddie, who displaced him from the national team, looms larger at the outset of play.
Colfor has gone close to picking up the Irish title on no fewer than six occasions and feels that he threw it away twice but, he says, winning that trophy no longer means what it once did to him.
This weekend Colfor kicks off his challenge with a match against old rival Pat Marron while Eddie, who has yet to justify the faith placed in him by the selectors, takes on Scotland based Norweigan Richard Mitusch. If both men make it through to face each other in the second round it should make for one of the weekend's more competitive en counters.
