Ireland lose Davis Cup playoff but win big off the court

The sight of Agwi and O’Hoisin being swamped by youngsters looking for selfies and signatures was in itself a snapshot of the potential the sport has.

Sun, 04 Feb, 2024 - 17:05

Brendan O'Brien

Sometimes you just have to take the leap of faith. There was a body of opinion within tennis in Ireland that the weekend’s Davis Cup World Group I playoff against Austria should have been played on familiar ground.

Somewhere like Fitzwilliam, or Castleknock where the last home tie in this competition was held all of nine years ago. The safe option.

Kevin Quinn, Tennis Ireland CEO, had spent 25 years working across Europe’s sporting landscape. All that experience told him to jump.

“We had nothing to go on and the safe thing to do, definitely, would have been to go with one of the big clubs,” he explained during the tie on Saturday.

“You wouldn’t have got anything like what we have here. It would have been maybe 6-800 seats.

“There was a line of thought that said, ‘let’s just do this one the way we know how and see’ but I really felt strongly that we go to a destination event … somewhere we could go again and where there were no questions about, ’is it only open to members, or tennis people’.

“Because this is Davis Cup. It’s massive.”

UL gave them a venue able to cater for 2,500 each day and tickets were snapped up like hot cakes. The company that laid the court for November’s Billie Jean Cup finals in Seville brought their flatpack pallets to Limerick a week ago and the surface, and the scene, was set.

The opponents were a big part of the attraction. Dominic Thiem has slipped down the rankings having won the US Open in 2020 and 17 ATP titles in total. A wrist injury played a large part in that, but he was still the star attraction here.

Players of this calibre just aren’t seen in Ireland.

His opponent in Saturday opening singles tie was Michael Agwi. A 20-year old who had reached his first ‘Futures’ tour event final only last month, his ranking shot up almost 200 places on the back of that tournament, but it still left him well adrift on paper of the man from Wiener Neustadt.

Agwi got the tie underway with an ace, broke back twice in the first dozen games and had three set points in the tie break before letting slip five in a row and the opening set. An early break in the second gave Thiem a 7-6 6-3 win.

Saturday’s second game was more straightforward.

Osgar O’Hoisin did have break points to go 2-0 up in the first against Sebastian Ofner but the Austrian, ranked 40 in the world, managed that and came through the opening set 6-4 without any further flutters.

The second was much the same with Ofner, almost 1,000 places higher in the ladder, coming through 6-4 6-4 without undue discomfort and leaving Austria with just the one match to win from Sunday’s three to claim outright victory.

They did that at the first opportunity, Alexander Erler and Lucas Miedler accounting for Conor Gannon and Dave O’Hare in two sets before Agwi was deprived of a famous win by falling 10-8 to Meidler in the third set in singles.

The fifth match went unplayed, giving Austria a 4-0 win.

As a showcase it wasn’t perfect. There were a few lobs and recovery shots from the back of the court that struck a girder, much to the annoyance of the players, but this was an occasion and a turnout that highlighted the hunger for elite tennis on these shores.

The sight of Agwi and O’Hoisin being swamped by youngsters looking for selfies and signatures was in itself a snapshot of the potential for a sport that emerged from Covid with elevated membership numbers but still faces issues at grassroots and elite levels.

Tennis Ireland, aware of the demand in a country where so many clubs are full to the brim and unable to accommodate more players, has introduced an Access Tennis programme with local authorities in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Kerry and Ards.

A 13-week trial programme that ran up to Christmas and tried to identify how best to support the country’s elite players – adult and underage – is to be rolled out on a longer basis come the start of the next season in September.

The number of junior international tournaments hit a high of eleven this year and is expected to rise again to 13 and a ‘Future’s tour Irish Open event is planned for the summer in an effort to bring more meaningful, high-level tennis to these shores.

“I have no doubt in my mind that if we can use our resources well we can get players back through to playing Grand Slams, like the Conor Nilands, James Magees,” said Quinn.