Irish Tennis has World Champions.

Irish tennis history was made in San Diego yesterday and a Cork woman was part of it.

Grace Reidy of Sundays Well tennis club travelled as part of the Women's 45 tennis team to the World Team Championships in San Diego and after five tough matches, the girls made history in bringing home the Margaret Court Cup.  The first ever World Title for an Irish team.

Seeded sixth in the event there was always the possibility of something positive, maybe a semi final if they worked hard and played well.  This was always going to be a big ask though, after the draw for the groups was made and Ireland ended up in the same group as the No.1 seeds USA.

Like true professionals you take one match, one game at a time and this they did.
In their first match they beat Poland 3-0.
This was followed with a 2-1 defeat of a strong Dutch team and now the number 1 seeds.
After splitting the singles it all came down to the doubles and Ireland weren't found wanting, a 2-1 defeat of USA.

Now, you start to believe things can happen, now, you are being watched and a team to be taken seriously.

The semi final opponents were Germany and again the singles were split.  As so often happens in this event the outcome of the match comes down to the doubles and again this was to be the case.
In a tough match, where Germany began to crack under the pressure and the loss of a point due to a warning in the second set tiebreak, Ireland were on their way to the final.

Could you believe it?  One match away from history!  Only France were standing in the way of Irelands greatest tennis achievement.  Revenge for Henry's handball?
Well you guessed it, the singles were again split and the faith of the title rested on the shoulders of Phillipa Palmer and Lesley O Halloran.

Could you pick a better person to have on court for you in this situation? I think not!  I should really point out at this stage, and not to take from the rest of the team members, that Lesley played 5 singles matches and 4 doubles matches and won all of them.   This is an amazing achievement and let's hope Lesley can take that form into next weeks individual World Championships and we may well be celebrating 2 world titles.

Right back to the match, well France decided to do what Ireland did and they put their two singles players back on court to play for the title.
France take these world championships very seriously as overall results show, they won four world titles across the various age groups, but this wasn't going to be one of them.
The Irish girls put in a very confident and solid performance and won the doubles 6-3, 6-2 in convincing manner and created history for Irish tennis.

Well done to all on an amazing achievement.

Four other Cork players travelled to this event, Marie Duffy (W50), Connie Creed (W50), Ann Naughton (W50) and Liam O Brien (M45) where they all acquitted themselves very well and will no doubt have enjoyed their experiences and the event.  The three girls were making their debuts and acquitted themselves well, while Liam has being here before and his experience showed.

He teamed up with Neil Wilson in their first match against Germany and won a convincing doubles and then followed up this with a win over the Australian number 1 in their singles in a tough three setter.

A big congratulations to all on your selections and doing Cork tennis proud.