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| Monday, 13 September 2004 |
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Colombo launch pad of Asian Under 14 series Sri Lanka will be launching point of the Asian Under 14 Series a new development initiative for Asia by Australian Open, an arm of Tennis Australia, in association with the Asian Tennis Federation. Richie Gee, the Asia/Pacific Marketing Manager for Australian Open, said that the new series will be made up of eight tournaments to be held in five regions and the September 21-25 event on the SLTA courts, Green Path, would be the launch. "The honour of opening the series went to Sri Lanka because its president, Suresh Subramaniam, was the first to bid for an event," said Gee, who was in Colombo last week to oversee the preparations. Sri Lanka is one of two tournaments allotted by Australia Open to South Asia; the other is New Delhi similarly. Beijing and Seoul are venues for East Asia sector, with Bangkok and Manila playing host to S.E. Asia's countries. Qatar and Uzbekistan will host the West and Central Asian sectors respectively. Future events will be rotated among willing countries. The Colombo event, as well as New Delhi's, will be open to players from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. The boys and girls singles champions of each tournament will eventually play in the Asian Series final in January-February in the prestigious Melbourne Park, venue of the Australian Open Grand Slam. As well, they will be invited to compete in the Australian Under 14 National championship in Sydney. "The aim of the Series basically is to develop tennis in the Asia region by creating more opportunities for the juniors. The Australia Open is offering the 16 winners of the eight tournaments an all-expenses tour of Australia to play in the Asian Series final. That's just one of the prizes," said Gee. "The more valuable one will be the access to the Australian Grand Slam, where they could likely share the same dining table with a Federer, Roddick or Agassi. There's a lot of inspiration a junior can get out of meeting their heroes." The Australian Open Grand Slam event dates back to 1905. One of the reasons why Tennis Australia created the Australian Open in the late 1990s is to fulfill its responsibilities to countries in the Asian and Pacific region being the Grand Slam country of the region. "We are one of only four countries in the world that have been given Grand Slam status. And the Australian Open is the Grand Slam for Asia/Pacific and we realize that there are responsibilities when a country holds such a position. Asian under 14 series is one those responsibilities we are fulfilling," said Gee. Australia Open is also offering another incentive to the singles champion of the annual Asian Championship a wild card to the main draw of the Australia Open Grand Slam. "We know professional sport career is less of a priority to studies in this part of the world. By giving the Asian champion a wild card to the main draw of our Grand Slam, hopefully, will contribute to altering attitudes to professional tennis in Asia." said Gee. The Colombo event next week will feature four events singles and doubles for boys and girls. |
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