Ten Sri Lankan paddlers for Asian Schools TT Tourney
 

by L.B. Dissanayake, Senkadagala Sports correspondent

Sri Lanka schools Table Tennis Association will send a strong team comprising five boys and five girls for the 3rd Asian Schools TT championship to be held in Mallakar, Malaysia from 2nd to 9th July this year.

Sri Lanka has taken part in two previous tournaments held in Macau in 1993 and 2000 in Hong Kong and has performed creditably on both occasions. In the inaugural tournament held in Macau Sri Lanka boys' team did very well to reach the semi finals.

This was probably the best ever result a Sri Lankan TT team has achieved at this level. They beat more fancied teams like Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Macau before losing to South Korea in the semi finals. In the playoff match for the third place they did very well against India before losing 3-1. But the girls' team did not play up to its expectations and lost all the matches after beating Macau in the first encounter.

In the second edition of this tournament held in Hong Kong in 2000, once again our boys team did very well and beat Malaysia and Brunei before losing to India and Hong Kong in close matches. As in the previous tournament the Sri Lanka girl's team failed to live up to expectations.

This time too Sri Lanka Schools TTA has selected a strong team.