Irish Duo Take Men’s Titles As Brown Misses Out On Final

The unseeded Irish pairing of James Cluskey and Colin O’Brien have won the men’s doubles titles at the AEGON Pro-Series in Edinburgh, as local star Mhairi Brown bows out of the women’s doubles event at the semi-final stage.

Cluskey and O’Brien lost the first three games but bounced back to take the first set, before going on to win 6-3 6-3 against fellow countryman Barry King and Britain’s Marcus Willis.

26-year-old Dubliner O’Brien, who has played in three Davis Cup ties for Ireland, enjoyed coming back to Scotland.

Said O’Brien, “This is my third year in a row at Craiglockhart but it is a first time for James.  I enjoy playing here.  I made the semis last year in the doubles so this is a big improvement for me.

“[I am] obviously very happy to win.  Myself and James only started playing together last week in Bournemouth.  We’d played together once or twice in the past but this was our second futures [event] together, so to win was great.

“We had a bit of a shaky start, went 3-0 down, including two breaks.  Conditions were pretty tough today with the wind swirling around but we knuckled down and played good solid percentage tennis and fought our way back into the match.

“We are heading to Newcastle now for the next AEGON Pro-Series event.  I won the doubles there last year, so we’re hoping that we can have another good run.”

Meanwhile Edinburgh’s Mhairi Brown, playing with Lincolnshire’s Samantha Vickers, could not avenge her singles defeat to Hungary’s Timea Babos when they met on Friday in the women’s doubles semi-final.

The 28-year-old, who is the Head Performance Coach at the host venue, was unable to draw on the strong home support as she and Vickers lost out to Babos and Britain’s Tara Moore in straight sets, 6-2 6-5.

But Brown refuses to get downbeat and is taking a lot of positives from her experiences this week.

“Overall I am pretty pleased with the week.  I felt that I got better with each match that I played.  [I am] really pleased with the doubles, getting to the semis, although we definitely had chances in the second set today.  It was a shame not to get the set because anything can happen in the tie-break.  But they were difficult conditions, really swirly and it was tough out there.

“I’ve come away from the week knowing what I have to work on, which is good.  A couple of things which could make a big difference to making me better.”

Home advantage certainly played its part as a combination of friends, family, work colleagues and players that Mhairi coaches all turned out to cheer her on.  Brown spoke positively of the effect that this had on her.

“I would like to thank everyone who turned up to support me this week.  Their encouragement meant a lot to me, as every time I looked up I saw another face I recognised and that spurred me on.”

For Brown the target remains Commonwealth Games selection for the Scotland team departing to Delhi later this year and despite only recently returning to selective events, she believes that she is on track to realise her ambition.

“I need points to progress up the rankings in order to achieve selection, and this week I have picked up points in singles and doubles which is good.

“I’ve made a tournament schedule between now and July and I have to try and juggle this around my work, making sure I can play tournaments as I need to, but obviously I need to work also to fund it.  So I am hoping to play in a $50k event in Nottingham and a couple of $10k events in Norway and in between continue to work on my game.”

There promises to be some high quality tennis on show at the Craiglockhart Tennis Centre over the weekend.  On Saturday, play is scheduled to start at 11am with the men’s singles final and women’s singles semi-finals, followed by the women’s doubles final.  Sunday morning at 11am sees the women’s singles final.

Potential stars of the future will be on show as there will be an 8 and under Mini Red tournament running indoors on Saturday morning from 9am.

Entrance to the grounds is free and all spectators are welcome.

Keep up to date with all of the action on the AEGON Pro-Series page

Pictured - Winners of the men's doubles James Cluskey (left) and Colin O'Brien, both from Ireland, being presented with their prizes by Tennis Scotland Honorary President, Dennis Carmichael OBE