Nishangan stuns Shamal in boys under 16 final

Angu RAJENDRAN

The Tennis Senior Nationals are underway at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association courts in Colombo. The coaches and others are discussing the week-ends events with anxiety writ all over their faces. The major upset of the junior nationals happened in the under 16 finals that was played after the senior nationals got underway.

Shamal Dissanayake who beat Nishangan Nadaraja in the under 18 championships in just two sets suffered a major upset on Sunday morning when the two played against each other in the Under 16 finals. In the three hour match Nishangan got the better of Shamal by 3-6, 7-5 6-0 to win the greatest title of his career so far the under 16 boys championships.

But fourteen year old Nishangan also had to play in the men’s finals on Sunday afternoon in two preliminary round matches. The young champion could not savour his victory as he was taken ill and rushed to the hospital soon after his final match. It is presumed that he suffered a touch of dehydration or heat stroke as the doctors have given him a drip.

Young Nishangan has the mentality of Nadal, says his coach Dinith Pathiraja. He will just not go away from the court. You have to chase him away. He will keep worrying the other player until his opponent drops his standard and then Nishangan gets to him, and gets on top. He is a naggingly good player. Most coaches and parents and others gathered at the venue of the matches were rather unhappy at the scheduling of events which they say is fairly taxing for young players. Coach Ricardo Fonseka was rather vehement when he said “I don’t think the officials think of players as players, rather as commodities.

Young good players are all playing in more than one age group, the match scheduling has to be done in such a way that it is convenient for these players. Perhaps it is true that the pro- tournament scheduling is such that players have to go into their next round without too much of a break.

Here we are talking about young players. Amateurs! They need a break. A short while to enjoy the glory of winning a tournament as in the case of Nishangan before having to play in the Nationals within about two hours.

Nishangan is not fit to play in the Senior Nationals right now due to the exhaustion of his three hour match against Sharmal in the Under 16 finals. He has given a walk over for his two senior national matches scheduled on the same day.

Some of the bystanders and audience were shocked that the under 16 tournament which is part of the Junior Nationals has been mixed up with the Senior Nationals which is a totally different tournament. Why is importance not being given for each tournament separately they wondered.

Some of the coaches even felt that there may be one hundred thousand students getting eight distinctions at the ‘O’ level exams but there is only one national tennis champion in the country and he or she must be given due importance for their achievement. Without players there are no coaches, no tournaments, no referees and no officials.

So why not give the players the importance that they deserve by scheduling their matches in such a way that it is convenient for the youngster was the general feeling. In the first day of the senior nationals top seed Dineshkanthan Thangarajah and bottom seed Amresh Jayawickrama won their matches easily while the unseeded Pakistani brothers Ashiq Heera and Ashia Tanvir upset the fourth and eighth seeds Sanka Athukorale and Aritha Weerasinghe 6-1,6-1 and 6-3, 6-4 respectively.

The other major upset on Sunday was when top seeded doubles players Dineshkanthan and Rajiv Rajapakse were beaten by the Pakistani brothers Ashiq Heera and Tanvir in their first doubles match of the Senior Nationals. The Senior Nationals that is underway promises to be one full of upsets and victories and the standard of tennis seems to be only getting better.