Tennis controversy - father picks son
 

by Dinesh Weerawansa

Controversy surrounds the selection of the Sri Lanka Under 14 tennis team for the forthcoming ITF Junior Championships in Australia next month.

The talk in tennis circles has been the selection of Aravind Fernando by the national selection committee, headed by his father Arjun Fernando, former Sri Lanka Davis Cup captain and veteran player. Several parents have alleged that the selection was unethical as chairman of selectors Arjun Fernando should not have sat on a selection involving his son.

According to the local junior ranking points, which were taken into consideration for selections as at December 31 last year, Shehan Gomes who has been overlooked, has 518 ranking points whereas Aravind Fernando has just 50 ranking points to his credit. At that period of time, Gomes was placed eighth in the local junior rankings whereas Fernando was way behind in 18th place.

At present Gomes is ranked No.3 in Sri Lanka junior ratings behind Dinesh Kanthan and Indika Wettasinghe. Surprisingly, Gomes has not been included in the three-member Sri Lanka Junior team even after Kanthan's decision to pull out due to examinations.

A total of 16 players were selected for the Under-14 junior national trials, worked off on a knock out basis. At the trials, both Gomes and Fernando Jnr. lost to the ultimate winner Eshan Jayamanna. However, Gomes, the current junior No.3, has beaten Jayamanna on numerous occasions. From these results, the controversy arises as to how Aravind Fernando, even though he reached the final, could be selected over a player he has lost on every occasion in other tournaments.

Fernando Jnr. is ranked much lower than Gomes, who recently won the Boys Under-14 event at the Bandarawela Open ranking tournament too. At the junior national trials in December, Gomes beat Aravind Fernando easily to be selected for the ITF under 14 Championships in Vietnam.

Several parents have requested the President of the SLTA, Suresh Subramaniam, who has steered the SLTA corruption free, to intervene and see that justice is done to a young player. They have also urged to dissolve the panel of selectors, as the tennis community has lost faith in their impartiality.

However, chairman of selectors, Arjun Fernando denied all allegations and said the selections have been made according to the set criteria, specified before the trials.

"We have set the guidelines for selections and the players were informed before the trials that only the winner would be included in the team," Fernando said when contacted. He added that Kanthan and Wettasinghe were added directly to the team without trials as they are far superior than the rest. "We had 16 players in the trials to determine the balance slot in the three-member team.

We told them only the winner would be added to the team while the runner up would be the stand bye. Jayamanna won the final beating Aravind, who is my son. Hence, Jayamanna was included in the team," he added.

But Fernando Snr. added that following the subsequent withdrawal of Kanthan, the selectors decided to include Fernando Jnr. Asked whether it wasn't a conflict of interest for him to chair the selection panel which eventually picked his son as the third player to the team, the former star Sri Lanka Davis Cup player said there was nothing wrong in it as there were set guidelines for selection. "If it was one to one selection involving my son, I would have walked out," Fernando Snr. said.