By Stephen Higgins
This weekend, Ireland’s Davis Cup side will take on China in the first round of World Group II at the Sport Ireland Campus in Abbotstown. Though both nations have participated in the competition since the early 1920s, this will be their first meeting.
Given that China dwarfs Ireland with a population over 250 times the size, you would imagine that the distance in tennis heritage follows suit. Surprisingly though, both sides have flirted with the World Group over the years rather than become mainstays.
In the case of Ireland, after the early glory of players who excelled while we were still part of the British Empire, our lot has been to compete against greater powers but with fewer resources.
However, on some famous occasions, the Irish have lived with the very best between the lines.
Before Independence
The Davis Cup began as a transatlantic challenge conceived by Harvard University students at the dawn of the 20th century. Dwight Davis, a top American player of the era, and his friends proposed a competition between the USA and The British Isles. He even bought and donated a trophy for this ‘International Lawn Tennis Challenge’, soon to be named after him.
The first Irish involvement came in the second edition (1902) when Joshua Pim was called up alongside the legendary Doherty brothers. Laurence and Reginald Doherty, who lived down the road from the All England Club, won 21 Wimbledon titles between them in singles, doubles and mixed. In Pim’s sole appearance in the competition, he lost both of his singles matches as the British side were beaten 3:2 in Brooklyn.
However, another Irishman would play a starring role as the British developed into a serious force in this nascent competition.
James Cecil Parke, a man often debated as Ireland’s greatest ever sportsman, was an inspirational figure for the British side during his six appearances between 1908 and 1920. The Clones man, who also represented Ireland in rugby, was considered one of the best tennis players in the world by the time he led the British Isles to a 3:2 victory over Australasia in the 1912 final in Melbourne.
Parke defeated the legendary Norman Brookes, for whom the Australian Open men’s trophy is named, in the first singles rubber before clinching the contest with a straight sets defeat of Rodney Heath in the fifth match.
In the superlative ‘The History of Irish Tennis’ by Tom Higgins, Parke is quoted as writing afterwards:
“The winning stroke was a fitting climax to what everyone called a sensational match – a swinging backhand volley, which passed Brookes like a streak of lightning, and raised a cloud of chalk on the sideline. My four-leafed shamrock had pulled me through.”
A media quote of the time even stated that “Ireland with a little help from England win the Davis Cup.” Parke would make another final for the British Isles in 1914, where the Australasian’s got revenge with a 3:0 win.
Ireland Stands Alone
Only weeks after the cessation of Ireland’s civil war, a Free State side took on India at Fitzwilliam LTC in June 1923. The home side, led by Cecil Campbell and D’Arcy McRea, beat the visitors 3:2 and set up a prestige tie with France.
Later that month, ‘Les Quatre Mousquetaires’ (The Four Musketeers) of French tennis came to Dublin and duly triumphed 4:1. Rene Lacoste, Jean Borotra, Henri Cochet and Jacques Brugnon were the pre-eminent players of their era, but Campbell still recorded an impressive win over Borotra in the second rubber.
The French returned to Dublin the following year, this time with half of the quartet. They were in a particularly stingy mood as they overwhelmed Ireland 5:0. The Irish would not win another tie during the decade.
Fortunes improved somewhat during the 1930s as the Irish secured first round victories over Monaco, Switzerland, Hungary and Sweden. However, their progress in the competition was consistently halted by Gottfried von Cramm’s stellar German side.
Von Cramm was one of the outstanding players of the era, with two Roland Garros titles alongside final appearances at Wimbledon and the US National Championships. In the Davis Cup, he fought fierce contests with our best player of the era, George Lyttleton Rogers.
Rogers, who was born in Dublin but spent his formative years in France, was known for his height (around 6’ 6”), pure backhand and a tremendous record against the world’s best players.
Rogers won titles all over Europe and made the last eight at Roland Garros twice in 1930 and 1932. For Ireland, he earned an impressive 24 wins in Davis Cup across singles and doubles between 1929 and 1939.
In 1932, Rogers beat von Cramm in singles to score Ireland’s sole point in a 4:1 quarter-final loss to Germany. Von Cramm would then gain revenge at Fitzwilliam in the 1934 edition. In a historic run, Rogers then spearheaded a fantastic 1936 campaign that saw Ireland defeat Sweden (4:1) and Switzerland (3:2) to reach the Davis Cup semi-finals.
Naturally, the old foe Germany awaited in the last four and there was little charity to be found in Berlin as the home side routed the Irish 5:0. Von Cramm vanquished Rogers once more during the tie.
Post-War Struggles
After the heady days of the 1930s, Ireland did not experience similar campaigns for a number of decades.
After the end of World War II, the resumption of the Davis Cup in 1946 saw an Irish team of Cyril Kemp and Raymund Egan humbled 5:0 by a strong Swedish side. It unfortunately set in place a pattern where our national side rarely mixed with the sport’s elite nations as the game expanded into more territories, and the amateur era gave way to its Open successor.
Between 1946 and 1975, Ireland progressed from the opening round on seven occasions with wins over Luxembourg (three times), Monaco, Finland, Switzerland and Turkey. In this transitional period to the modern era, there were still some fine players and performances in green.
The Fitzwilliam trio of Kemp, Joe Hackett and Guy Jackson formed the backbone of the post-war side before the emergence of players such as Limerick’s Michael Hickey and Belfast’s Peter Jackson. All-round sportsmen and revered in Irish tennis, Hickey and Jackson were called up for 19 and 18 ties respectively.
The Sorensen-Doyle Era
After a fallow period on the international scene, Irish tennis exploded into life in the late 1970s and early 1980s thanks to an American infused duo.
Sean Sorensen, who was born in Maine but grew up in Cork, earned his first Davis Cup cap in 1976 in a 4-1 loss to Egypt at the age of 20. The following year, he became the Irish no.1 and qualified for Wimbledon where he lost to Rod Laver in round one.
The skilled lefty brought fresh energy to the national side and they beat Iran in 1976, and then Portugal in 1977 to set up a quarter-final clash with Bjorn Borg’s Sweden. In the spring of 1978, the four-time major winner and recent world no.1, rocked up to Winton Road and helped his nation to a 5-0 landslide. Borg only gave up four games across his two singles matches with Hickey and Sorensen.
As our fortunes started to wane once more, California’s Matt Doyle declared for Ireland and revitalised the side. Doyle, who would soon be a top 100 player, played the first tie for his adopted country against Norway in May 1981. He secured two singles rubbers and combined with Sorensen to win the doubles as Ireland triumphed 3:2.
It was the start of a great partnership for Ireland. Between that Norway debut and his last tie against Greece in 1988, Doyle secured 19 singles wins from 29 matches. He added a further eight points in doubles, six with Sorensen and two with Peter Wright.
The highlight of this era was the 1982 surge that brought Ireland into the World Group for the first, and thus far only, time in the Open Era. Taking full advantage of home comforts for the four ties, the Irish dispatched Luxembourg (5:0), Monaco (4:1), Finland (4:1) and Switzerland (4:1) at Fitzwilliam to win Europe Zone A. Their reward was a place at the top table of international tennis in 1983.
In the first round, Doyle and Sorensen put in an almighty effort on Calabrian clay as they narrowly lost 3:2 to an Italian side that contained two members of the 1976 Davis Cup-winning side. In Raf Diallo’s excellent feature for RTÉ on the Doyle-Sorensen era, Matt recalled the frustration of the Italian defeat:
“The big result that screwed us was losing the doubles. That let us down because they had a guy, [Corrado] Barazzutti, who was a serious player and had been to the semi-finals of the US Open when it was played on clay for a couple of years. So he was going to be hard to beat on clay and I was never a good clay court player. Sean was quite a good clay court player.”
With that loss, Ireland faced a World Group relegation play-off against the most successful side in the history of the competition – the United States. The US found themselves fighting for survival after a 3:2 defeat to Guillermo Vilas’ Argentine side in Buenos Aires.
Ireland enjoyed home advantage for this crucial tie and given the Hollywood nature of the opponents, the contest was switched from Fitzwilliam to the larger RDS Arena. Arthur Ashe, the US captain, brought an elite side to Dublin that comprised world no.1 John McEnroe, top 20 talent Eliot Teltscher, and McEnroe’s outstanding doubles partner, Peter Fleming.
Despite the disparity in rankings and major titles, Doyle and Sorensen fought well on the fast carpet in Ballsbridge.
McEnroe opened proceedings with a straight sets win over Sorensen but Doyle quickly levelled with a 6-3 6-4 6-4 win of his own over Teltscher. In the doubles rubber, the seven-time major winning combination of McEnroe and Fleming proved too much for Doyle and Sorensen and took the match in straight sets. The final two singles matches were tight affairs, but McEnroe and Teltscher overcame Doyle and Sorensen respectively to take the tie 4:1.
While Ireland lost the tie, the glamour of having the world’s best tennis player perform in Dublin, particularly with his Irish lineage, left an impression that has weathered the decades. As Doyle later said to RTÉ:
“The crowd went wild for McEnroe…But looking back, I certainly understand why. It was just cool to see the number one player and such a celebrity so there was all a bit of a rock star feel about John back then.”
While the Irish team left the main stage after that defeat, Doyle and Sorensen still inspired victories over Finland, Cyprus (twice), Malta, Norway and Greece before they departed the scene in the late 1980s.
David and the Goliaths
As the exciting 1980s transitioned to the 1990s, Ireland hung on in Group 1 for a while off the back of a new generation of players led by Owen Casey, Eoin Collins and Michael Nugent. Then in 1991, heavy defeats to Portugal and Romania relegated the Irish to Group II where it would primarily compete over the following seasons.
After relegation in 1995 to Group III at the hands of Ghana and the Ivory Coast, Ireland swiftly returned to Group II the following season with six straight wins spearheaded by Casey, Collins, Scott Barron and John Doran.
Over the following decade, Ireland at times encountered the game’s elite as it fought to retain its standing. After beating Luxembourg in the opening round of the 2000 campaign, a side featuring Casey, Barron and a young Conor Niland faced the might of Croatia at Fitzwilliam.
The visitors called on Goran Ivanisevic, who would win Wimbledon the following season, plus future stars Mario Ancic and Ivo Karlovic. Casey and Barron actually took sets off Ivanisevic and Ancic in the singles but could not stop a 5:0 defeat.
After a 3:0 win over Armenia in May 2002, Casey retired from Davis Cup participation after a record 26 ties played, 33 match wins, and 12 years of service. The next generation of Niland, James Cluskey, James McGee and two of Sean Sorensen’s sons, Louk and Kevin, then took up the mantle.
Ireland oscillated between Group II and III before Niland retired from playing in 2012 after 22 ties played with 19 victories in singles and doubles. In 2015, he took over the captaincy from Garry Cahill and has guided the side back to Group II after relegation in 2018.
In 2024, a sell-out crowd in Limerick watched Ireland compete well with an Austrian side that contained the 2020 US Open champion, Dominic Thiem, and top 40 player Sebastian Ofner before losing 4:0.
Today’s Davis Cup side is led by 22-year-old Michael Agwi, a 22-year-old who may just have the power and athleticism to inspire Ireland to more exciting days in the world’s largest annual international team competition.
