Owen Casey's capacity to spring a surprise remains intact even in his 12th month of retirement from the professional tennis circuit. The 28-year-old Dubliner, a wild-card entry, set the ATP Futures international event alight at Riverview yesterday with a textbook performance that dismantled the mature game of the number three seed, Israeli Raviv Weidenfeld, for a 6-7, 7-6, 6-3 win.
Weidenfeld, a tall experienced campaigner, currently ranked 293 in the world and effectively the number two seed since the withdrawal of top seeded Dutchman, Rogler Wassen, through illness, would not agree that it was Casey's game that beat him .
He complained that the brand of tennis ball for the tournament upset him as did the court surface. But he was sufficiently gracious to admit: "Yeh, he (Casey) is a good player."
Once Casey got the feel of his opponent's pounding serve and countered his slice in the second set, the shock result was on the cards.
In a final set that lasted 36 minutes, Casey grew in confidence and dropped minimal points on serve.
Ireland's number one Scott Barron breezed, almost arrogantly for a wild card entry, to a straight-sets victory over Italian Daniele Bracciali, the number eight seed. The Italian is ranked 262 places above Barron's 696.
Tommy Hamilton celebrated his opening match at the outset of his professional career with a promising win over Colin Bennett of Britain.
John Doran, the Irish Davis Cup player, operating out of Harvard University, was ousted 7-6, 6-3 by unseeded Thomas Shimada of Japan ranked 525. After losing the first set tie-break (7-5), the Irish man succumbed quite tamely.
