Three hard courts for SLTA’s Negombo Training Centre

Chinthana Wasala

The Sri Lanka Tennis Association will officially open the three hard courts which has been set up in the Outstation Training Centre in Negombo on January 9, 2009.

A concept by Suresh Subramaniam, the former President of SLTA, with the fullest support of Nimal Lanza, the Mayor of Negombo, the state of art courts have been constructed with the latest foreign technology using Trueflex for the surface.

More facilities will be provided to the Negombo Training Centre later including floodlights so that the maximum use could be made of the courts.

This was a result of SLTA’s continuous effort to develop tennis and to make it popular among the outstation tennis enthusiasts.

At the inception, SLTA started a training centre in Bandarawela using the Bandarawela Tennis Club courts.

Negombo however will be the first training centre, where SLTA will be in control of the entire infrastructure and management.

The property, which is owned by the Negombo Municipal Council, will be handed over to SLTA to carry out this project.

Negombo, which has produced a number of promising players in mini-tennis such as Nishangan Nadaraja, Tharaka Sandaruwan, Mishal Sinnen and Kavindya de Silva is expected to be a prime location to start SLTA’s outstation development programme for the year 2009.

The Negombo Centre is expected to have a minimum of 250 players for the program by June 2009. The purpose of this is to create more awareness there by increasing the number of tennis players in this centre with quality coaching. Three coaches will be in charge initially.

The Rs.18 Million project which was funded by the Negombo Mayor, was then carried out by Maxwell de Silva. Iqbal Issac, who was the Selector for SLTA, Barathiraj Pillai - National Co-ordinator for Junior Tennis Initiative who is also the Outstation Development Officer are some of the key persons who have played a key role in making this a success.