Otter Open Squash from May 15

Richard DWIGHT

The well established 77-year old Otter Aquatic Club (OAC) has through the years earned a reputation of being a leading social club.

Mainly by promoting fellowship through entertainment and sports, such as swimming, water polo, tennis, squash, badminton and yet others.

Tangible evidence of this will be seen when the Sri Lanka Squash Federation (SLSF) conducts the 5th Otter Open Squash Championship from May 15 to 22.

This eight-day tournament play which will be sponsored and hosted by OAC will be held on their Squash Courts at Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Colombo 7.

These observations were made by the President of the SLSF Oliver Guruge and Vice President OAC Vinod Lalvani at a media briefing held recently at the club. The oncoming tournament assumes a measure of importance, in that it is the forerunner to the 3rd Asian Junior Individual Squash Championship which is expected to take place in Colombo in early July.

The competitive events to be held are

(1) Men's and Women's open, (2) Men's Intermediate over 35, (3) Master's over 45 and 50, (4) Boys and girls under 09, 11, 13, 15, 17 and 19.

Boys and girls Novices under 12 and under 15.

Since this is a ranking tournament many frontline players will be taking part.

It will be interesting to see how the very promising youngsters Binura Jayasuriya and Gihan Suwaris perform. According to the Secretary OAC, Mayura Amarasinghe the entries for the championship close on May 10 with the Secretary SLSF, Ravi Gunaratne, Secretariat Tamil Union C and AC and also at the Otter Aquatic Club.

The draw will be held on May 13 at the club.

The chief guest at the finals will be the President of OAC Sisil de Silva.