Three of the M DONNELLY Senior Doubles quarter-finals take place this weekend, with defending champions, Dublin’s Egin Jensen and Eoin Kennedy launching the action. The pair take on David Moloney and Noel Murphy (Tipperary) in Clogh, Kilkenny tonight (Friday) at 8pm and are expected to make the semi-final stages of the competition. Jensen and Kennedy have taken doubles honours for the past two consecutive years and are hot favourites to claim their third title.

The renowned Meath partnership of Walter O’Connor and Tom Sheridan will also take to the court tonight (Friday) where they face Roscommon’s Rikki O’Gara and Damien Martin in Mullingar at 8pm. Martin and O’Gara had a walk-over in their round of 16 and one sees this game being a year too soon for the upcoming young partnership. Sheridan is now out of contention for this year’s senior singles honours and will have his focus set on taking another doubles title with O’Connor, their most recent All-Ireland victory coming in 2004.

Mayo’s Dessie Keegan and Joe McCann are also scheduled to play their quarter-final match against father and son, Robbie McCarthy Senior and Junior from Westmeath, in Roscommon on Sunday next at 6pm. The McCarthy duo had an impressive victory over Dublin’s Ian Griffin and Christy Donnelly last weekend’s clash and the pair will be hoping to cause an upset against the Ballaghaderreen pair, who last contested an All-Ireland final in 2005 where they lost out to Kennedy and Jensen after a tie-breaker finish.

The last of the quarter-finals will take place next Thursday where Wexford’s Tommy Hynes and Gavin Buggy await the winners of the clash between Vincent Moran and Campbell Brennan (Mayo) and Wicklow’s Michael Gregan and Pat Quaile. That round of 16 game is fixed for next Tuesday at Mullingar, with semi-finals singles action returning the following weekend, where Eoin Kennedy and Dessie Keegan go head to head, and Ducksy Walsh looks to make his first Senior All-Ireland final since 2002 when he takes on Wicklow’s Michael Gregan.

Eoin Kennedy (Dublin) and Gavin Buggy (Wexford) in action