JOHNNY WATTERSON ON TENNISSPEAK TO most people over the age of 35 and they will tell you how it used to be around the Irish tennis circuit. Tournaments in Dublin, such as the Dublin County Championships in Carrickmines, were once the jewels in the summer crown. Irish tennis had a self-sustaining life of its own, where the social nature of the event was almost as important as its position in the sporting calendar.

People still talk about the old wooden Carrickmines clubhouse, which is now replaced, the grass courts on the croquet lawn and the hedge running along the back, where the balls would get lost and where some visiting teams might allege you would be eaten alive by midges. Oh, the good old days of the Pamela Scott.

Those club tournaments evidently still exist and play their role in Irish tennis but the game has moved on and for four weeks, starting on June 16th, Ireland has a more elevated circuit running, one that recognises where the modern game has moved to and where world ranking points are at stake.

For the handful of Irish players who try and make their living out of competing in Futures and Challenger tournaments around the world, these three events, one in Limerick and two in Dublin, are extremely welcome. There is little or no cost for travel or transport for the Irish players and they are competing in a familiar environment. Compare Limerick or Dublin to Maribor in Slovenia or Hammamet in Tunisia and you get the picture.

The two Futures events in Brookfield, Dublin, and Limerick Lawn Tennis Club, followed by the Fitzwilliam Irish Open, which is a $50,000 (€32,000) Challenger level event, represents a run of three weeks where a high level of professional tennis is being staged locally. There will be no better tennis played all year in Ireland and many of the players involved will go on to play Grand Slam events and crack the world top 100. These events have various functions and it is not just a stepping stone to launch careers for younger players.

When Andre Agassi married the actress Brooke Shields in 1997, the paparazzi chased the couple around and invaded their lives to such an extent the then winner of an Australian Open and US Open title began to slip down the tennis rankings. He lost focus on his tennis and subsequently missed the first six months of that year, including the first three Grand Slams in Australia, Paris and London. In the final Grand Slam of the season, the US Open, he departed in the first week by which time he had fallen to 141 in the world, a level that would not get him automatic entry into the Majors.

His then coach Brad "Winning Ugly" Gilbert dramatically recommended the great Agassi pull the plug on his scheduled top tier tournaments, return to his home in Las Vegas and start playing in the minor league of tennis, something that is done in baseball but rarely tennis and never by a Grand Slam champion like Agassi.

So he went and played in Challenger level tournaments, the same level as the Irish Open. He lost his first match to a player ranked 202 in the world called Christian Vinck but he persevered. Afterwards Agassi used to speak of the humbling times in matches where he had to change the scores himself at the back of the court. Did it do him any good? Well he came back to win three Australian Opens, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and another US Open and complete a career Grand Slam (winning all four majors), something Roger Federer has yet to do.

At the end of the three tournament run, Ireland also plays in their Europe/African Zone Group 11 Davis Cup match in Fitzwilliam against Ukraine from July 18th. That gives about a month of international tennis in Ireland in June and July, with three of those weeks in Dublin.

While the Futures and Challenger dates that span June 16th to July 5th are not the best to maximise publicity - as Wimbledon runs from June 23rd to July 8th - for the moment they are the best act in town. It is difficult to compete with the biggest tennis event in the world but Ireland does not choose the dates. That is done with the world governing body.

And there will certainly be half a dozen other similar events taking place around the world at the same time. No, it's not the Pamela Scott and there are no croquet lawns anymore but the quality of the tennis and the ranking point implications for the players involved move Ireland in the right direction.