CRAIG LONGLAND made sure of his best-ever Junior National Tennis Champ-ionship campaign yesterday when he cruised into the last eight of the under-18 competition.

And, prior to his clash with Yorkshire's Ben Riby today, the Southampton teenager had yet to drop a set in the Nottingham event.

He beat Thomas Higgins of Essex in the first round 6-2 6-3 and was equally dismissive of Berkshire's Mark Winship in round two.

But he reserved his best form for yesterday's third round match when he knocked out Chris Lewis of South Wales, in what he anticipated would be a tough test, 6-4 6-2.

Longland's Nottingham form continues a recent run of suc-cess. Winner of the recent open tournament at the Lee-on-Solent club, Longland also reached the semi-finals of the Ilkley Open in Yorkshire when he lost 6-7 7-6 3-6 on his unfavoured grass surface against Kent's Jim May.

He also qualified for the boys' doubles final, playing with Chris Watts of Dorset, but had to pull out in order to get back to Southampton. Longland reached the semi-final of the recent Bournemouth Open but pulled out of his clash with Richard Barker (Warwickshire) with a groin injury. But he and Watts won the doubles and he also reached the men's open quarter-finals.

And Longland warmed up for the nationals with a 6-1 6-1 vic-tory on Saturday in the final of the under-18 event at West Worthing against Dorset's Matthew Sanger.

Longland's clash with Riby today was going to be a tough test. The Scarborough player is the reigning under-16 national champion and beat May in yesterday's third round, albeit in three sets, 6-3 4-6 7-5.

Hampshire's last representative in the girls' under18 event lost yesterday.

Catherine Gunn, after good straight-set wins over Miranda Foley of Cambridgeshire and Chatal Coombs of Kent, was knocked out 6-3 6-2 by fourth seed Nicola Trinder (Northumberland).

Lucy Smith never got in her first-round match against Joanne Mayne of Hertfordshire and lost 6-0 6-0.

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