Esporta Sunderland, winners of the Northern Division in the North-East section, have luckily reached the national eight-team play-off by a back door route.

Their 3-1 win over Aberdeen, the Scottish winners, in last weekend's inter-section play-off afforded a late replacement in the national finals in York. The North-East champions, Lancashire Racquets of Middleton, had booked their place some weeks ago and second placed Sheffield should have met Aberdeen. Their withdrawal, however, gave Sunderland the opportunity, which obviously they readily grasped.

Sean Galpin and Ainsley Kershaw won two rubbers comfortably and second pair Adam Barratclough and Nathan Lundy added a third. The first half ended 1-1 with Galpin and Kershaw winning 6-3 6-2, but the second pair just went down by 6-1 4-6 6-7. After the interval they did beat their opposites 6-3 6-2 and the first pair won their next rubber 6-2 6-1.

Next Generation York, as hosts of the finals, received a wild card entry into the last eight and should do well with South African Marius Barnard and Yorkshire's Jason Torpey as leading players.

Durham's world ranked number one Daniel Kiernan will spearhead the David Lloyd Derby team and with the likes of international veteran Nick Fulwood and national standard Ian Flanagan in the team, the defending champions co9uld possibly hang on to their title.

Some £5,000 is the total prize money for the finals of the nationwide competition which started way back last October and included teams from far and wide. Play starts today at 2pm with two of the quarter-finals, the rest atf 7pm this evening.

The other contenders are David Lloyd Milton Keynes, David Lloyd Cheadle (Manchester), Windsor and Wrexham. Durham's Ben O'Connor has a wild card to play for Windsor and the Welsh club has also made the last eight as a substitute for Esporta Croydon.

Tomorrow the semi-finals are at noon and 4pm with the final on Sunday at 1pm.