Barry books his place in Open second round

LIMERICK’S rising tennis star Sam Barry has booked his place in the second round of the US Junior Open.
The 18-year-old from the Ennis Road defeated USA’s world number 34 Nick Chappell in the first round of action in New York on Monday.
Playing in the Flushing Meadows event for the first time the Limerick teenager, ranked 62nd at under-18, dumped out Chappell 6-1 6-3 in 73 minutes. The Limerick man now faces number five seed Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Tomorrow Barry will play doubles with New Zealand’s Ben MacLachan against the fifth seeds, Juan Sebastian Gomez of Colombia and Yasutaka Uchiyama of Japan.
After his first round win in the US Junior Open Barry is now looking to go one step further than the Australian Open. Last January Barry reached the second round of the Australian Junior Open while in June he fell at the first hurdle in the French Open.
A son of Michael and Jean - from his initial introduction to the sport in Limerick Lawn Tennis club at the age of six, Sam Barry has been a member of Tennis Ireland’s National Training Programme since September 2007 and he trains at the BNP Paribas National Tennis Academy which is operated by Tennis Ireland at DCU in Dublin.
This Monday’s win for the Limerick man bridged a 17-year gap for Irish players in the US Junior Open - no player from Ireland had won a match in the main draw of the Flushing Meadows event since Karen Nugent became the first to achieve the feat - in the girls’ singles in 1993.
Right-hander Barry made a very shaky start against his left-handed Toronto-born opponent, facing three break points in his opening two service games. But after saving all of those, breaks in the fourth and sixth games helped Barry take the opening set in 35 minutes.
Barry and Chappell shared four services breaks in the first six games of the second set but the Irish player broke to love in the seventh game, and after holding to 30 in the next, he finished off the American in style by breaking him to 15 in the ninth game.

Jerome O’Connell