NICK WEAL, last year's shock finalist in the national tennis championships, won the all-Hampshire clash with Chris Wilkinson at Telford yesterday to move into this season's quarter-finals.

And Weal, who had to play the qualifying competition after his absence from the British Futures and Challenger events this year saw him slide down the world rankings, has a great chance of further progress again.

He was due to meet Berkshire's Paul Hand today knowing that four of the top seven seeds are out of the competition.

Former british number one Wilkinson was seeded six but retired from the full-time professional circuit following Wimbledon and struggled after taking the first set 6-4 against his doubles partner.

"He got a break in the second set but, when he served at 4-3 I broke him to love," said Weal. "I made it 4-4 in the longest game of the match and then broke him to 15 to go 6-5 up."

Weal took the set 7-5 and went 2-0 ahead in the third set. But Wilkinson was not finished and came back to 2-2 before Weal won three straight games and had two match points at 5-2 only for Wilkinson to save both.

Wilkinson also hung on bravely in the next game, saving two more match points, but Weal eventually ran out a 4-6 7-5 6-3 winner.

Number seven seed Miles Maclagan also went out against 17-year-old Lee Childs of Smoerset, first-round winner over Basingstoke's Iain Bates. Childs now plays top-seed Jamie Delgado who beat Nick Gould of Avon.

Weal gained revenge on major rival Gould - and clawed back a few more points to push himself further into the lead on the Girobank Tour's overall points table by defeating the former Davis Cup player in straight sets - 6-3 6-1 - in the latest final at Sheffield. It gave him the £550 winner's cheque for his seventh Girobank title of the year.

With four events to play on the 1999 Girobank Tour, the overall title is still open.

"It's touch and go now but winning this match should put me about 130 points ahead of Gouldie. I will probably play another three out of the last four events and I don't know how many he's playing," said Weal.

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