Munster scored a rare under-18 national double in the finals of the Dunlop Irish Open Junior Tennis Championships at Fitzwilliam on Saturday. The superior play of Elsa O Riain and Conor Niland ensured that the commendable feat was achieved within a time span of two hours and 50 minutes.
The only real surprising aspect of the premier finals was an enforced three-setter for top-seeded Niland. This meant that the Limerick youth lost his first set of the week. He put this down to a loss of concentration after his 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 success over David O'Connell of Clontarf.
Elsa O Riain confounded the notion that she would not beat the reigning champion, Catherine Lynch, and endorsed her top-seed rating in straight sets 7-5, 6-4.
O Riain will play at the Canadian Open next week and hopes to gain entry into the US under-18 event next month - she is a reserve for a main draw place. The Cork girl showed greater power and placement on serve even though some of Lynch's best points were initiated by solid returns. Significantly, O Riain had to serve twice at 5-4 and 6-5 before taking the first set. O Riain's serve was really brought to bear in the second set for, apart from the 6th game in which she was broken she, dropped only two points on her serve in the set before winning it and the match in the 10th game to 15.
There have been far better boys' senior finals down the years. Niland's victory had a lot to do with his greater resilience and an ability to fight back into the game after going into arrears, but most of the longer rallies could have been ended much sooner with greater initiative from either side of the net.
O'Connell started as though he was on track for a shock result, affording Niland only one point while racing to a 2-0 lead. This setback spurred Niland into more positive action and he proceded to undermine O'Connell's challenge by winning the next six games for the set.
Niland suffered another setback at the start of the second set, this time losing his opening service game to love to slump into a 2-0 deficit. The subsequent nip-and-tuck pattern saw the Munster boy's level of concentration punished and O'Connell took the next three games to close down the set.
The main surprises came in the junior and minor singles in which Gareth Doran, the number two seed, beat Barry King in the 12th game of the final set and Tristan Farron-Mahon ousted top seed Paul Morrissey.
Finals
Boys
Senior singles: C Niland bt D O'Connell 6-2, 3-6, 6-2. Intermediate: S O'Connor bt R Sinclair 6-7 6-0 6-2. Junior: G Doran bt B King 6-4, 5-7, 7-5. Minor: T Farron Mahon bt P Morrissey 6-2, 6-3.
Senior doubles: Niland and O'Connell bt T Barry and F Lennon 4-6, 7-6, 6-4. Intermediate: R Sinclair and N Turner bt R Kernan and C O'Brien 6-4, 6-3. Junior: P Brickley and S O'Connor bt B King and G Doran 7-5, 5-7, 7-6. Minor: Morrissey and D O'Brien bt P Foley and W O'Grady 6-2, 6-3.
Girls
Senior singles: E O'Riain bt C Lynch 7-5, 64. Intermediate: E Murphy bt C McMorrow 7-6, 6-4. Junior: A Leonard bt A Wynne 6-2, 6-2. Minor: R Dillon bt K O'Shea 6-1, 6-2.
Senior doubles: A M Hogan and J Thompson bt E Moore and J Quinn 6-3, 6-2. Interme- diate: Leonard and S McIntyre bt N McHale and E Murphy 6-4, 2-6, 6-2. Junior: C Finnucane and E Heffernan bt S Griffith and A Wynne 7-5, 6-4. Minor: R Dillon and D Gilroy bt E Cassidy and J Power 6-3, 5-7, 6-4.
