Irish at the Australian Open

**Dodge** · 16/01/2010, 1:45 AM

Louk Sorenson has just won his final qualifying match to become the first Irish tennis player in 25+ years to reach the main draw of a grand slam!

Conor Niland is currently 3-0 up in the first set of his last QR

A great night for Irish tennis

**irishultra** · 16/01/2010, 2:08 AM

awesome

**WexCar** · 16/01/2010, 3:31 AM

Good strong Irish names

**paul_oshea** · 16/01/2010, 10:00 AM

they won a game open the champagne.

**Stevo Da Gull** · 16/01/2010, 10:27 AM

Huge for Irish tennis, even bigger for Louk personally. Quite and achievement. Here's hoping he can pull off a big win over Lu!

**Poor Student** · 16/01/2010, 11:27 AM

Niland didn't make it in the end, he won the first set but lost the next two.

**Dodge** · 16/01/2010, 11:28 AM

Originally Posted by paul_oshea

they won a game open the champagne.

Hmmm, interesting that you cried when Irish men in a sport you like didn't qualify, and yet you're quick to dismiss Irish sports people who actually do qualify for something

If you've no interest in it. Don't comment.

**paul_oshea** · 16/01/2010, 11:44 AM

eh i dont remember saying i cried, though i thought i said close to tears, however thats semantics and not really relevant. relatively i dont think you could compare the two anyway.

I actually like tennis, played it a good bit at community games when younger, but out of all the nations, throughout the country we have public tennis courts and kids playing, not with proper coaching maybe, but i hardly think being in the top 128 is any great achievemnet or as the case maybe qualifying for one tournament to enter that number, especially when the aus open is probably one of the easier to qualify for too.

Its a public forum of course i am going to comment if i want to.

If he wins his next game or two games then ya that would be some achievement.

**Stevo Da Gull** · 16/01/2010, 12:01 PM

Originally Posted by paul_oshea

eh i dont remember saying i cried, though i thought i said close to tears, however thats semantics and not really relevant. relatively i dont think you could compare the two anyway.

I actually like tennis, played it a good bit at community games when younger, but out of all the nations, throughout the country we have public tennis courts and kids playing, not with proper coaching maybe, but i hardly think being in the top 128 is any great achievemnet or as the case maybe qualifying for one tournament to enter that number, especially when the aus open is probably one of the easier to qualify for too.

Its a public forum of course i am going to comment if i want to.

If he wins his next game or two games then ya that would be some achievement.

The AO is no easier to qualify for than any other slam really. When you consider how many people around the world play the sport with aspirations of making a career out of it and being the best, to make it into the top 200 is quite an achievement. I expect Louk to crack that nut this year.

I know a guy who played tennis from an early age, travelled a lot to play in his teens before going to America. He never got anywhere near where Louk is today. To qualify for a grand slam is a great achievement, we need to put things in perspective. I suppose in soccer terms this would be like an Irish player playing his first match in the English Premier League.. and we'd make a big deal out of that if no other Irishman had done it for 25 years.

**HarpoJoyce** · 18/01/2010, 12:17 PM

Rain interrupted must of the schedule on Day One on the outside courts.

Day Two schedule
http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/...schedule7.html
Court 14 Louk Sorensen (IRL) v. Yen-Hsun Lu (TPE)
11:00 am
Start

Weather permitting that puts him warming up at 12:00 midnight (Irish time) and starting his game a few minutes after on Tuesday morning

**tiktok** · 18/01/2010, 12:33 PM

Originally Posted by paul_oshea

i hardly think being in the top 128 is any great achievemnet or as the case maybe qualifying for one tournament to enter that number, especially when the aus open is probably one of the easier to qualify for too.

Pfft, sure to use that logic 32 teams qualified for the World cup and each is allowed to bring a squad of 23. So any individual player in that competition is actually only in the top 736 players, which we all know is easier to qualify for than the European Championships [or at least it's easier for us over the history of the sport in Ireland].

Even something as simple as this qualification will help raise the profile of the game in Ireland and might mean a few extra kids will pick up a racket and in a few years time, we might have two people in the top 128 at Wimbledon.

**paul_oshea** · 18/01/2010, 1:58 PM

But tikok i knew loads growing up who played tennis at some stage. Picking up a racket isn't the problem, lots of 20 - 30 year old irish would have played tennis growing up at some stage. The problem is probably coaching and the struture in place. I dont remember anything after u14 community games that we were able to play in....probably because the person who used enter us wasn't aware of anything else. Same as table tennis, i loved that and was about the only thing i was decent at and we did well at up until u14 but we had nothing after that age.

**DmanDmythDledge** · 18/01/2010, 2:08 PM

Surely then that makes it an even greater achievement?

**tiktok** · 18/01/2010, 2:21 PM

Originally Posted by paul_oshea

But tikok i knew loads growing up who played tennis at some stage. Picking up a racket isn't the problem, lots of 20 - 30 year old irish would have played tennis growing up at some stage. The problem is probably coaching and the struture in place. I dont remember anything after u14 community games that we were able to play in....probably because the person who used enter us wasn't aware of anything else. Same as table tennis, i loved that and was about the only thing i was decent at and we did well at up until u14 but we had nothing after that age.

In fairness Paul, that a different argument to what I was responding to, if anything what you've posted above only goes to show more clearly what a huge achievement it is for an Irishman to get into the top 128 and qualify for a grand slam.

**Dodge** · 18/01/2010, 11:23 PM

SOrenson on now. He broke serve in first game

Long, long way to go though

**TheBoss** · 18/01/2010, 11:48 PM

5-3 now in the first set. Doing fine so far.

**Leejo** · 18/01/2010, 11:55 PM

http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/index.html Click on live scoreboard on the right hand side of the page is the only way I think you can follow it. 5-4 up in the first now, serving for the set.

Edit- Just won it 6-4