The Sri Lanka Tennis Association is gearing up to celebrate its centenary year and with it comes the 100th National Tennis Championship which is scheduled to be held from August 7 to 23. The event will be held along with the Junior National Championship to be worked off at the SLTA tennis courts in Greenpath.
This was revealed by Iqbal Bin Issack the President of the SLTA at a press briefing held at the SLTA auditorium. Adding glamour to the press briefing was the presence of Sania Mirza who partnered Martini Hingis to bag the women’s double at the recently concluded Wimbledon Tennis Championship. These two are incidentally ranked as the World number one doubles partners.
The SLTA president speaking further said that they are proud to organise this year’s event which coincides with the centenary celebrations of SLTA. “We are expecting a record number of entries as it will be something very special to the ultimate winner.
“Apart from that we have planned to conduct two ITF Futures tournaments during the course of the year. I would also like to mention that we have already conducted three ITF Futures tournaments this year,” stated Iqbal Bin Issack.
The two ITF Futures tournaments slotted to be held will be $15,000 ladies tournaments which are due to be conducted in November this year. “Also prior to these two events we will hold the 1st ITF Board Meeting in Colombo and then ATF AGM scheduled to be held in October,”said Bin Issack.
Sanjay Wijemanne, Head of Consumer Banking, Standard Chartered Bank, a former Davis Cup player and presently a member of the national selection committee said that he is impressed with the interest that is shown to the game of tennis.
“When we played there were only 32 player draws in most of the age groups but today there are entries in hundreds for the nationals. We are also keen to support young talent in the rural areas and also we support the blind national cricketers,” said Sanjay Wijemanne.
Jinesh Hegde, CEO and Managing Director of Bharti Airtel Sri Lanka stressed that it’s a great honour to be involved with the centenary celebration of the SLTA and that they have been supporting the game for the last four years. He pointed out that their aim is to support sports activities in order to keep in touch with their customers.
Udith Wickramasinghe the tournament director stated that the support extended by Airtel has gone a long way as they have been able to charge low entry fees. “As a result of this there has been an increase in the players taking part in the tournament,” he said.
Udith added that the main contenders for the men’s title are Sharmal Dissanayake, Dineshkanthan Thangarajah and Sanka Athukorale while Amritha Muttiah, Thusuri Molligoda and Medhira Samarasinghe will be the contenders in the women’s category.
“Apart from the Sri Lankan players we are expecting the participation of foreign players from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India,” stated Udith.
However the cynosure of all eyes was the women’s Wimbledon doubles champion Sania Mirza who may, most probably, be the first ever world number one player to visit Sri Lanka.
Sania mentioned that unlike in Europe, tennis as a sport is not taken seriously and is also not popular in the Asian region. Most of the young players give up the sport due to studies.
“This is my second visit to Sri Lanka having earlier played an ITF junior tournament when I was 13 years. Since my last visit there have been a lot of changes in Sri Lanka. I am greatly honoured to be a part of the centenary celebrations,” she concluded.
