Junior National tennis boys’ U-18 quarters today

Anuradha ABEYSEKERA

Aritha Weerasinghe fought hard to beat Yasitha de Silva (6/3, 1/6, 6/4) in closely contested three sets in the under 18 second round tie when the 2012 tennis Junior Nationals continued for the third day at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA) hard courts, Colombo yesterday.

Aritha faced a shocking 1/6 defeat in the second set after winning the first set without much trouble over Yasitha (6/3). Yasitha came back strongly to win the second set with fierce performance while restricting his opponent for just a one point. Both players battled point to point from the beginning of the third set, but Yasitha could not cope with Aritha’s aggressive play and the game was ended in favour of Aritha (6/4).

Kavindya De silva, Thasha fernando and Shankari Thayakaran have already qualified for the girls under-18 singles semi finals and Vinuri Wickramarthne will meet Samendri De Silava today to select the fourth semifinalist.

Today, the boys’ under-18 singles quarter finals will be the highlight of the fourth day of the tournament. SLTA informs that the tournament may be drag for few more days than they expected due to large number of entries.