The St Andrew's Sporting Club chief has the 6ft 7in tall, 18-stone Cornish booked to appear in an eight-round contest in London next month.

In recent weeks, Cornish, 25, has sparred with British heavyweight supremo David Price during the build-up to his stoppage at the hands of heavy-hitting Yank Tony Thompson. Now the heavyweight prospect will be appearing as chief support to the fight between two Price victims, John McDermott and Matt Skelton, at the York Hall on March 15.

Gilmour said: "Gary is a young boxer who is still developing and learning his trade, and we have the best possible plan for him to achieve his potential."

The promoter also revealed Willie Limond is set to make the first defence of his Commonwealth light-welterweight title in Glasgow in April.

Gilmour said: "Should Willie come through that and Lee McAllister prevails in his comeback on April 6, we will have a major all-Scottish title fight coming in the summer."

TENNIS Roger Federer surprisingly dropped the first set against little-known Malek Jaziri before putting the Tunisian upstart in his place with a 5-7 6-0 6-2 win to reach the second round of the Dubai Championships yesterday.

On a relatively low-key opening day, seventh seed Andreas Seppi beat Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-3 7-5 and Russian eighth seed Mikhail Youzhny overcame Slovenia's Blaz Kavcic 1-6 6-1 6-3.

Top seed Novak Djokovic was in action on day one with his brother Marko.

But their doubles adventure ended in round one.

They were beaten 4-6 6-3 10-4 by Nikolay Davydenko and Dick Norman