Johnston advances to last eight as top seed Glancy opts out with flu

AFTER RECEIVING a walkover from top seed Daniel Glancy in the opening round, Glasnevin’s Paul Keoghan was quickly jolted back to reality last night at the National Indoors Tennis Championships at David Lloyd Riverview when Mike Johnston defeated him 6-4 6-1.

Johnston was pushed to a second set tie-break before seeing off the gutsy challenge of Angus Lloyd in his opening contest.

But despite that favourable scenario for Keoghan, Johnston, who plays out of the Donnybrook and Fitzwilliam clubs, clinched his place in the quarter-finals on a reasonably comfortable basis.

The player standing in the way of Johnston’s place in the semi-finals is Greystones teenager Ciarán Fitzgerald who coasted to a 6-0 6-2 success over Castleknock’s Connor Schelling-Tisza.

That makes only a concession of a total of two games in the opening two rounds for this year’s winner of ITF U-18 world-ranking event, at Cobh’s Rushbrooke, in the wake of his 6-0 6-0 victory over Co Wicklow’s Odhran O’Sullivan Hamill on Monday.

Fitzgerald will be joined in the last eight by his older brother Niall, who romped to a 6-2 6-3 success against Belfast Boat Club’s Karl Donaldson. Niall is currently on home on holiday from the famed Notre Dame University in Indiana, where he is a tennis scholarship student.

The elder Fitzgerald faces Briton Ed Seator next, now based in Dublin, who comfortably saw off the challenge of Co Wicklow’s Stephen Martin 6-1 6-2.

Seator, who plays out of Dublin’s Westwood Clontarf club, received a wild card in Wimbledon qualifying in 2008, but made a first round exit against Ireland’s Louk Sorensen.