Ireland's top players will have a rare chance to take on world-ranked opposition during the ITF Futures tournaments over the next two weeks at Riverview.

The events will give wild card-favoured Irish players such as Scott Barron, Owen Casey, John Doran and Robert Collins an ideal opportunity to measure their ability against top quality players. Italy's Daniele Bracciali showed his versatility on the various surfaces when reaching the third round at Wimbledon last year and he is now ranked at 203 in the world.

The exciting prospect from an Irish point of view is the fact that Barron and Casey, who have rarely failed to impress at this level, can provide players like Igor Gaudi of Italy - the number two seed - and his compatriot Daniele Melo with some stiff opposition. Irish players awarded wild cards for the qualifiers over the weekend are George McGill, David Mullins, Stephen Nugent, Sean Cooper and Joe Green.