IRELAND'S Owen Casey is one game away from playing at Wimbledon next week.

If Casey, partnering Austrian Georg Blumauer, wins today's doubles final at Roehampton against the Italian pair Massimo Ardinghi and Nicola Bruno he will be in next week's draw.

Victory would enable the Dubliner to bridge a lamentably enormous gap in Irish tennis history. The signs are encouraging for Casey who has hit top form since Wednesday's opening rounds. Partnering Blumauer he has already met with significant success by reaching the semi finals in the Malta Challenger in April.

That form was carried on last Wednesday when Casey and Blumauer accounted for the Dutch pairing of Eddie Banks and Herman Troost 7-6 (7-2) 4-6 9-7. Yesterday they won at the penultimate stage with victory over Geoff Grant (US) ranked 190 in the world and Claud N'Goran (Ivory Coast) ranked 175. In this match, two tie break sets decided 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (7-3).

Victory today would give Casey and Blumauer one of the four main draw qualifying places on offer.