It was a busy week for the Irish tennis with with of the ATP players in action.
After I confidently predicted he wouldn’t, Louk Sorensen comfortably made the main draw in San Jose, Costa Rica after originally being eighth on the alternates list.
It was his first hardcourt event back after his long lay off and unsurprisingly his best result.
In the first round he beat Brazil’s Rogerio Dutra da Silva in straight sets – a revenge victory after losing to the world number 157 last month on clay in Ecuador.
Soresen followed that result up with a three set comeback victory against another Brazilian, Caio Zampieri.
In the quarter-final, the German-based Irishman was at his racket-smashing best, getting through several sticks during his defeat to eventual tournament champion Giovanni Lapentti.
The result was enough to lift him up 51 places to 487 in the rankings. But more importantly, he can still use his protected ranking of 281 to enter another six tournaments.
Fresh off teaming up for Ireland’s Davis Cup match against Luxembourg, James McGee and James Cluskey headed to the $15k Futures event in Bath where they won a round before falling to eventual champs Chris Eaton and Josh Goodall 10-8 in a match tiebreak.
McGee also played singles in the English city. He breezed through qualifying but lost in the first round to former top 100 player, Stefano Galvani despite taking the first set 6/1.
It is possible that McGee was put off by the Italian’s delayed grunt, which is probably the latest in tennis history and seems to come just as his opponent is about to strike the ball. It’s also possible that he wasn’t.
Another Irish doubles pair was in Futures action, Daniel Glancy and Sam Barry teaming up in the $10k event in Albufeira to reach the final.
Beating a pair of 14-year-old twins in the semi-final probably wasn’t the ideal preparation for a final and they lost to the Anglo-Spanish team of Morgan Phillips and Agustin Boje-Ordoniz in the decider.
Glancy and Barry also got some singles wins under their belt in Portugal, coming through a mammoth 96 main qualifying draw to reach the main event.
Barry didn’t have much luck then, being paired against top seed Claudio Grassi, who beat the Limerick man in straight sets.
The draw was kinder to Glancy and he eased past lucky loser Stefan Sterland Markovic before going down to tournament runner-up Adam Chadaj in the second round.
It was decent showing given that it was his first Futures event of the year and there are surely better things to come from the Castlebar man in the not too distant future.
This week sees the return of Conor Niland who hasn’t played on the tour since mid-February. Niland will play the Challenger in a Bath and will begin against Wild Card Dan Evans.
