From 1,675 entries across the board, the oneils.com World 4-Wall Handball Championships has been whittled down to eight in the elite grades, with the semi-finals of the Men’s and Ladies Open Singles down for decision on Saturday.
First up (9am) is an all-Galway clash. Niamh Heffernan (22), who stunned one of the top seeds in Tyrone’s Eilise McCrory, will take on 2022 All-Ireland champion Ciana Ní Churaoin, with 2018 world champion Martina McMahon of Limerick facing former Roscommon footballer Fiona Tully in the second ladies semi-final.
A dramatic day of action in the quarter-finals of the Men’s Open on Thursday saw fancied Robbie McCarthy and Killian Carroll sensationally ousted.
In the first of the semi-finals, five-time champion Paul Brady, who at 45 has done the unthinkable and reached the last four, will face number one seed Martin Mulkerrins.
Texas-based Mulkerrins (31) has won the last five professional tournaments in the US and has been in dominant form thus far but has never beaten the iconic Brady so an epic battle is promised.
In the second of the semi-finals, Clare’s Diarmaid Nash and 25-year-old Mallow man David Walsh, conqueror of McCarthy, go head-to-head, with both men in outstanding form to date.
Meanwhile, in the Men’s Open Doubles, Americans Leo Canales and Abraham Montijo took the scalp of leading Irish pair Nash and Colin Crehan in a tiebreaker in the quarter-final.
They meet Mulkerrins and Carroll, with McCarthy and partner Joe McCann (Mayo) taking on the ‘Flying Cordovas’, brothers Luis and Daniel, from Juarez, Mexico in the other semi-final.
