ITF Junior Tennis Tourney begins today:
Competition from youngsters abroad
Richard Dwight
The junior under 18 tennis tournament of the International Tennis
Federation (ITF), has since the year 2005 been successfully held in Sri
Lanka by the Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA).
This does speak well for the administrative and organising ability of
the SLTA that has led to the ITF permitting this tournament to enjoy
continuity here in Sri Lanka.
And so the fifth of this annual exercise in junior tennis will take
the form of the first tournament confined to ‘week one’ from October
5-11 and the second tournament referred to as ‘week two’ from October
12-18.
These initial observations were made to the members of the media at a
briefing held last Thursday at Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo by the
President of the SLTA, Maxwel De Silva, Maxwell also added that much has
been done for the betterment of tennis here, which he believes has made
the right kind of impression for ITF to consider directing a few more
tournaments here.
According to the Tournament Director, Irshad Othman and Tournament
referee, Ishara Seneviratne this ITF Junior circuit week and two tennis
tournaments, will take place from October 5-18 at the SLTA courts.
The number of entries received is 88 of which 32 entries have been
received in the girls’ category, with the possibility of there being
additional entries with time.
The prospective junior tennis players vying for championship honours,
and as well to improve their rankings are from India, Thailand,
Maurities, USA, Iran, Korea, Pakistan, China, the Philippines and Sri
Lanka.
In the girls category Sri Lanka will be represented by Amreetha
Muttiah, Kemalie Herath, Sheren Wijesinghe, Shankari Thayakaran and
Nilushi Fernando.
Amreetha Muttiah is the bottom seed ranked at 661 and India’s Zainab
Ali Sajjad is the top seed with ITF rank 491 followed by two other
Indian girls in Tarranum Handa ranked 698 and Parminder Kaur ranked 777.
In the boys category India’s Sidharth Sivakumar with ITF 362 is the
highest ranked player in the tournament followed by the two Chinese in
Zhaoyi Cao ranked 552 and Junnan Tai ranked 617 - much is expected from
the promising Sri Lankan lad, T. Dineshkanthan who is ranked 780 and is
the 4th seed for this tournament. |