Tennis: Owen Casey reached his second successive men's Irish Open tennis final at Templeogue, Dublin, last evening but he has yet to win one. He had to call on all of his resources during his semi-final victory over South African Vaughan Snyman.
Snyman forced a second-set tiebreak after Casey failed to take advantage of three match points in the 10th game. The Irishman had to wait for a fourth match point before closing out 6-3 7-6 (7-4). Casey will face Nick Gould (Britain) in today's final.
Men's singles: semi-finals - O Casey bt V Snyman (RSA) 6-3 7-6 (7-4), N Gould (Brit) bt D Marafiote (Aus) 6-2 6-3.
Leinster Women's Championship: semi-finals - L Ahl (Brit) bt A M Hogan 6-0 6-0,N Grandin (RSA) bt M Joubert (RSA) 7-6 (7-2) 46 6-4.
Athletics: Mark Carroll completed his Sydney preparations at the Berlin Golden League meeting last night with an eighth place finish over 3,000 metres - recording a time of seven minutes 41.03 seconds.
The African-dominated race was won by Algeria's new distance sensation Ali Said Sief in 7:30.76, although for Carroll, who had at least a dozen Africans behind him, it is a respectable time considering it was a little short of his 5,000 metre target in Sydney.
Canoeing: With the World Marathon championships taking place this weekend in Nova Scotia and Olympic hopefuls Ian Wiley and Eadaoin Ni Challarain having just departed for Sydney, these are busy times for Irish canoeing.
Gary Mawer in the K1 class is Ireland's biggest hope in Canada, while 43-year-old Eileen Murphy seeks glory in the veterans' event.
Rugby: Ireland's Geordan Murphy plays at full back for Leicester's televised clash - Sky Sports 1 (2.30) -with Northampton today.
Motor Sport: Reigning champion Niall Maguire has only three points to spare over Paul Harris in the Dunlop National Rally Championship, with just two rounds to run: tomorrow's Clare Stages and the Skibbereen event on October 29th.
Fresh from his win in the Dunlop Rally of Ireland last weekend, Austin McHale is the number one seed in his Toyota Corolla WRC for tomorrow's event, with Eamon Boland seeded two in his Subaru Impreza WRC.
