Tennis star Cliona is toast of Ireland
A special reception was held in Sligo Tennis Club to honour one of its young stars who has gone into the history books by becoming the first player to win the Girls U14 National Indoor Championships.
It was also the same day that Cliona Walsh was celebrating her 14th birthday and she has already achieved so much in the sport at such a young age.
Aside from becoming National champion, the Calry native is also ranked No 2 in Ireland at that level and this is also another first for someone from the club to gain that status.
A large group of tennis players, coaches, friends and family were in Sligo Tennis Club on Tuesday to celebrate with Cliona.
The young sportswoman said she was delighted at becoming national champion. Tennis has been a sport all of her family have played. “Mum and dad took it up before I was born, Conor also plays, he’s 16 now. When he started playing, I got into it too. I was about six. I started with the coaches Alan McCormack and Jean Barr here in Sligo Tennis Club,” she added.
Cliona said that she was always big into sport from a young age. “I like sport a lot and I play soccer and Gaelic as well. I play them with my school, I’m in second year in the Ursuline.”
As Cliona’s career developed, the titles started accumulating although she is modest about her victories, “I actually don’t know how many titles I’ve won, my first one was the Connacht match plays when I was ten.”
Winning the National Indoors is a huge achievement and Cliona was up against some of Ireland’s best in the competition, she defeated the No 1 seed in the final.“I played five matches across a few days in Leopardstown Westwood. I played a girl called Lucy Hogan first and then I played Jessie Fitzgerald and then Grace Maloney, Coco Lynn Browne and Rachel McCrum in the final. She’s from Belfast.
“I had played her a good few times and I had never really done well against her.”
This time though it was the Sligo tennis player who won the match. “I kind of went out differently, was more relaxed.
“It’s the same as the adults tennis, it’s still three sets, so it can be tiring enough and you can have long matches.”
Cliona has an intense training programme and she practises both in Sligo and Castlebar Tennis Clubs. “I train six days, three days here in Sligo and three in Castlebar. It’s a lot of hours.”
She said following on from becoming National champion she hopes more titles will be coming her way in 2018. “I still have the 2018 U14 in August and for the rest of the year hopefully I’ll keep playing and enjoying it.”
She said getting a scholarship to the States after school would be a dream come true. “I think that would be ideal and then I could still play tennis for the school or whatever.”
Cliona’s coaches are Matthew McCann and in Castlebar it’s Garrett Barry. Cliona said that after her big win her classmates were congratulating her on her success and of course the Walsh family were very proud too. “It was on New Year’s Eve that we got home from the championships so it was nice start to the year.”
In terms of the women’s tennis stars at the moment, Cliona said she’s a big fan of Caroline Wozniacki. “She won her first Grand Slam at the Australia Open recently. I was delighted with that. What I like about her is that she’s a relaxed player and she’s nice to watch.”
And who knows one day this young Calry star could be following in her footsteps. At the special reception for Cliona, Emer Concannon, Sligo Tennis Club Captain, said she had done exceptionally well and everyone in the club was very proud of her and wished her well in the future. Míchéal O’Bríon, Tennis Club President, also congratulated Cliona on becoming National champion, adding it was a great achievement for the young athlete.