Simon Carr gets wild card into Irish Open main draw

Exciting young prospect Simon Carr has been rewarded with a wild card into the main draw of the ITF Men’s Futures Irish Open.

On his adult tournament debut, the 15-year-old son of former Dublin football ace Tommy Carr faces a tough opening round test today in the Fitzwilliam Club event against experienced British player Daniel Smethurst.

Manchester-born Smethurst is currently placed at 541 in the adult world rankings and as recently as June 2014, was positioned at 234 in the ATP ladder.

Carr’s most recent tournament involvement was in the Dutch U18 Open late last month when he advanced to the second round of the qualifying draw.

In total, seven Irish players will be bidding to clinch places in the second round of the world ranking event, with No 2 seed Sam Barry, who reached the semi-finals of last year’s corresponding tournament, carrying the main home hopes.

After lining out for Ireland in the away Davis Cup clash against South Africa at the weekend, Barry was not due back into Dublin until early this morning, so his first round match against British qualifier Howard Scott has been delayed until after 5.30 this evening.

In yesterday’s qualifying draw second round, Bjorn Thomson was the only Irish player to clinch a place in the main draw.