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Tennis on the up

Sri Lanka has retained its place in the Asia Oceania Group 111 of the Davis Cup tennis tournament. Sri Lanka fared reasonably well in finishing fourth out of eight countries that competed in the qualifying rounds of the Asia Oceania Group 111 played in Hong Kong last week.

It was only last year that Sri Lanka regained a place in Group 111 of the Asia Oceania zone after winning all their matches in the Group IV tournament in 2004. Sri Lanka's ultimate goal should be to win back their original place of the Asia Oceania Group 11 within the next couple of years, a feat which won't be that hard when considering the emerging young talent we have.

At this year's Davis Cup Asia Oceania Group 111 qualifiers, Sri Lanka ended fourth behind Hong Kong, Malaysia and Vietnam. Coming behind Sri Lanka in this group were Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Tajikistan. Hosts Hong Kong lived up to expectations to finish on top to get a promotion to Group 11 from next year, along with Malaysia while Qatar and Tajikistan were demoted to Group IV from next year.

Sri Lanka started their Davis Cup campaign with two convincing back-to-back wins against the bottom seeds Qatar (3-0) and Bahrain (3-0). But they narrowly lost a crucial tie in their group against Vietnam (1-2) that cost them the top berth in the bottom half after the semi-league first round. The Lankan lads failed to recover from that loss and then went down to Hong Kong (0-3) and Malaysia (0-3) - the top two teams at the end, in the final round play-offs.

Harshana Godamanne, having won the first set in style, lost two keenly contested remaining two sets in going down to Malaysia's Selvan Veerasingham 3-6, 7-6 (5), 7-5. In contrast, Renouk Wijemanne could not offer much in losing to Yow-Ming 2-6, 1-6. Our doubles combination of Rajiv Rajapakse and Oshada Wijemanne won the second set and then took the Malaysian pair of Adrian and Qi Hao Tan to an evenly contested tiebreaker in the final set. But the Lankans narrowly lost the doubles 3-6, 6-2, 7-9.

Both Godamanne and Wijemanne gave good contests in the first sets of their respective singles matches of the tie against Hong Kong, which ultimately ended on top of the Asia Ocenia Zone group 111 tournament.

But both of them lost their second sets in similar fashion (2-6) to surrender in straight sets - Wayne Wong beat Harshana Godamanne 7-5, 6-2 while Hiu-Tung Yu had the better of Wijemanne 7-5, 6-2. It was almost a similar show by Sri Lanka in the doubles where Brian Hung and Martin Sayer beat Godamanne and Wijemanne 7-5, 6-1.

Though Sri Lanka had a favorable draw and also went on to win a crucial first round tie against the bottom seeded Qatar, they failed to capitalize on that sound footing, losing to Vietnam after a close tussle. Had we won the decisive doubles game against Vietnam, Sri Lanka would have been psychologically up with the first round group leaders title.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka should be happy with the emerging young talent it is having. Sri Lanka has fared well in junior international tennis in the last few years and it is this teenage talent that has now come forward to elevate Sri Lanka in the Asia Oceania Zone of the Davis Cup tournament.

Yet, Sri Lanka has a long way to go to regain a place in the Davis Cup Asia Oceania Zone group 11 and cement their position. However, with the exposure our players are getting at international level, Sri Lanka is capable of doing so next year.

Sri Lanka Tennis Association is heading in the right direction under the dynamic leadership of Suresh Subramaniam. That is why the Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs, Jeevwan Kumaranatunga did not hesitate in giving the green light to Subramaniam to become president for a record fourth successive term. On the other hand, the SLTA membership had confidence in him to elect him without a contest.

Subramaniam and his hard-working committee have been instrumental in hosting many junior international tournaments at the National Tennis Centre (NTC) courts in Colombo.

In addition, the SLTA went a step ahead to develop other venues of its member clubs when they were awarded the first ever-junior international tournament in Sri Lanka at a club venue - at SSC, recently. In return, the Singhalese Sports Club, hosted the tournament in an exemplary manner.

The SLTA has been giving special emphasis on the development of the game and also popularizing the sport amongst youth. We should also concentrate on schools, where the raw talent is. A constructive program to sustain the schools talent is vital for the progress of the sport.

Thanks to the professional way of handling things, Sri Lanka has been one of the most sought after venues in the Asian region by the International Tennis Federation. Impressed by the superb conducting of the tournaments as the hosts, the ITF has always preferred Colombo as a regular international tennis destination, mostly for junior international level.

This is vital for Sri Lanka tennis as our tomorrow's stars could build up confidence by competing with the cream of international stars in the region under favourable home conditions.

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