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| Tuesday, 9 September 2003 |
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Franklin, Thiyumi tennis champs by Chris Dhambarage Fifteen year old Franklin Emmanuel of Royal College and Thiyumi Abeysinghe of Visakha Vidyalaya clinched the men's and women's singles title respectively at the 88th senior national tennis championships concluded at the NTC courts in Green Path yesterday. The tournament was conducted by the Sri Lanka Tennis Association and sponsored by F & G Property Developers and Fingara Club. Franklin Emmanuel in fact retained the men's singles title by overcoming the former champion Rohan de Silva in a four setter 6-2, 6-7, 6-3, 6-2. Rohan de Silva who won the title in 1990 and in 1993 got off to a shaky start losing his very first service game and then falling back 4 nil. He managed to steal one break back but lost the first set 6-2. In the second set Rohan de Silva had an early setback when he lost his serve but the former champion bounced back with a break and play remained on serve. Rohan de Silva recovered from an early setback and rallied around through his experience to win the second set in a thriller 7-6. In the third set Emmanuel switched tactics and started focusing on his opponents forehand. This turned out to be the winning move as he managed to exploit Rohan's movement throwing him off court and finishing off the points with powerful shots down the back hand line as he took the set 6-3. Emmanuel then added the finishing touches in the most spectacular manner winning the fourth and final set quite convincingly 6-2. In the women's singles final Thiyumi Abeysinghe defeated Mahesha Seneviratne in straight sets 6-4, 7-5. The women's final too turned out to be a close contest with the match lasting for nearly two hours. |
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