On Tennis: When it comes to tennis talk in Ireland, there is a subject that brings a pall of gloom, an issue that nobody really has a satisfactory answer for, or even an answer for. It concerns the Irish tennis player who turned up in the main draw at a grand slam event.

It hasn't happened.

Irish tennis has never been able to produce a white rabbit from the hat, a sort of "hey presto" player who suddenly breaks through into one of the Majors and captivates the country for a week or so with a brave run at Roland Garros, Flushing Meadow or Wimbledon.

The game has never been able to produce a tennis equivalent of sprinter, Derval O'Rourke, who hey presto'd at the last World Athletics Championship with a gold medal in the 60 metres hurdles. The "where-the-hell-did-he-or-she-come-from" has never been a question asked by the general public about tennis.

From outside people judge tennis players against golfers at Augusta, cueists at the Crucible or athletes, who this summer will compete in Gothenburg at the World Athletics Championships.

But Ireland's evident frailties at the upper end of the international tennis market are not to say that the domestic front is barren of good quality tennis, or competitive tournaments, or, talented players. That's simply not true.

In the Danone Masters Series, tennis operates at a local level in Ireland just as the AIB All Ireland League in rugby occupies the niche underneath the higher-pitched Celtic League, Heineken European Cup and Six Nations Championship.

The Masters Series began at the start of the year with the National Indoor Championships at Riverview and continues through until August, where the Graded Open in Co Wicklow closes the qualifying period.

The end-of-season Masters tournament is then based on performances in the 12 tournaments throughout the summer. That finale will consist of eight male and eight female senior players.

Although there are 12 tournaments, a player may use their five best in order to qualify for the Masters event.

There are also wild cards used, although, Tennis Ireland permit the wildcards to be available only to those players who have represented Ireland in either Davis Cup or Federation Cup events during 2006.

So far just two have been staged, the Irish Indoors and the Greystones South Leinster Championship. On June 10th the Munster Championship at Sunday's Well will preceed the two Futures events in Limerick and Dublin, which are considered entry level events into professional tennis as well as a source of Masters points. For the Futures events 3,000 points are up for grabs, with 1,500 points for the national tournaments and 1,000 points for the seven regional events.

Not only is the series a source of cash for young professionals, who one day hope to put an end to the ongoing grand slam dirge, but keeps them involved over a period of months and ends with a pretty highly geared domestic event. If Conor Niland has his way, he may very well arrive at the Danone Masters with a world ranking approaching 300.

Last year 31-year-old Yvonne Doyle defeated Galina Misiuriova 6-4, 7-5 to take the women's title with Fitzwilliam's Timo Barry collecting the men's prize with a three-set win (5-7, 6-3, 6-1) over Dara McLoughlin.

We may continue to use geological time and carbon dating to measure the last time an Irish player made an assault on the outer regions of a grand slam event.

But the negatives that come out of rating the game against an international measure is not to say the sport is not thriving below the top levels.

Sheep help to serve up the perfect shot

It is probably true only losers trawl through the International Tennis Federations's technical section. But if you are a rackets-buying right-on mum in Ireland, who cooks veggie meals for the kids and doesn't too much like the idea of animal products . . . well torch this page immediately. The first lawn tennis rackets, used in 1874, were strung with the stretchy, outer skin of sheep intestine, known as serosa.

Indeed the ITF point out "sheep gut is remarkably well suited to the job of providing outstanding flexibility, elasticity and retention of tension". It goes on: "Shortage of sheep gut following World War II forced manufacturers to look for other natural gut alternatives. Cow gut was eventually adopted after several years of experiments with pig and horse innards. The number of animals that were needed to make a set of strings was halved by this change (from six sheep to approximately three cows), as was the number of strings per racket.

"Between 11 and 12.2 metres of string is needed to string a tennis racket. Sheep intestines are typically less than eight metres long, so conventionally two strings were needed per racket. Longer cow gut permitted single-string rackets to be produced from natural gut for the first time. This enabled faster stringing times, although two strings allow hybrid combinations (different strings for main and cross strings) and normally longer lifetimes.

"The initial stage of natural gut production involves soaking the entrails in a chemical bath to remove contaminants. They are usually bleached to give a perfectly clear string, although some manufactures prefer not to decolour their strings. The strands are spun and slowly dried, and the resulting fibres are polished to smooth out any defects and achieve the required diameter. The final step is to apply a protective polyurethane coating."

As Wimbledon approaches and young Josh and Molly are swishing their rackets around in the sports shop to find the one they like, you might just want to inquire from the whether the strings are natural or synthetic.