TENNIS:The finals of the men's singles and women's singles in the National Indoor Tennis Championships will be contested today at David Lloyd Riverview without top-seed John McGahon and Welsh international Olivia Scarfi.
McGahon a promising member of the Davis Cup squad was ushered out of the event by number-five seed Colin O'Brien of Malahide on Saturday evening. O'Brien has since progressed to today's final in which he takes on second seed James McGee.
The Malahide man's encounter with McGahon was the major surprise of the tournament up to that point, but, in yesterday's semi-final, Mariyana Levova emulated the Malahide player by dismantling Scarfi's impressive game to the tune of 2-6, 6-2, 6-1.
Levova, last year's junior winner, has an all-court game that generally upsets opponents. She is a busy player from the back of the court as well as in the forecourt and Scarfi was visibly upset by the pressure.
Levova faces the second seed, Donnybrook player Rachel Dillon, in today's women's final.Dillon maintained her impressive performances with a straight sets win over Amy Bowtell, who had a convincing season on the European Junior tour this year.
Dillon dismissed Bowtell 6-3, 6-4, but will obviously have her work cut out to overcome the effective Levova in today's decider.
McGee was possibly denied important match practice before facing O'Brien in today's final as his opponent in yesterday's semi-final, Martin Golab, a Polish entry, was forced to retire in the third game of the second set having failed to put McGee under any significant pressure. The number-two seed took the match 6-0, 3-0 retired.
O'Brien was justifiably pleased with his success over McGahon and claims that the vital game came in the second set when he broke McGahon's brittle service to level at 5-5 before going on to hold and break once more for the match 6-2, 7-5.
Meanwhile, France beat Argentina 2-1 in its opening group match at the Hopman Cup mixed-team tennis event in Perth, Australia, while first seed Serbia downed Taiwan 3-0.
Tatiana Golovin and Arnaud Clement won 6-3, 6-2 in the mixed doubles to secure a victory for fourth-ranked France.
Serbia's Jelena Jankovic and Novak Djokovic won their singles matches against Taiwan, before combining to beat Hsieh Su-Wei and Lu Yen-Hsun 3-6, 6-2, 7-6 (10-8) in the doubles. They'll play France today. The US faces the Czech Republic today.
