The Sri Lanka Tennis Association announced, that they would be hosting the 6th consecutive International Wheelchair Tennis Open Tournament from the 21- 23 Feb 2013 at SLTA courts Colombo 7.
This tournament would be a US$ 2000 prize money tournament and significant wheelchair tennis tournament on the ITF Future Series NEC series on the calendar.
The NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour originated in 1992 with 11 international tournaments. It has grown into a tour comprising of 161 events in 40 countries around the world. The NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour concludes with the most prestigious event, the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Masters, a year-end world championship for the top 8 men and women players and top 4 Quad players. The NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour is divided into Grand Slams, Super Series, ITF 1, 2 and 3 Series events and ITF Futures events.
With international rankings and prize money, the sport has clearly elevated itself to a more professional level. Tournaments offer various draws allowing all players a chance to compete at a competitive level. The No. 1 ranked male and female players at the end of the year are honoured as the Wheelchair Tennis World Champions during the ITF World Champions Dinner held at Roland Garros.
The primary goals of the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour are to:
•Provide opportunities for thousands of people with physical disabilities to compete in professionally organised sporting events.
•Offer high intensity competition and excitement for men, women, quad and junior players from recreational to professional levels.
•Give wheelchair tennis players rightful recognition as top sport athletes.
•Increase awareness about people with disabilities throughout the world.
•Create lifetime opportunities for athletes to enjoy and practice a sport with able-bodied and disabled opponents.
A world-class field will assemble at the [tournament name]
For more details about the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour, please refer to the following web site:
http://www.itftennis.com/wheelchair/tournaments/index.asp
This tournament will attract top ranking wheelchair tennis players from the world and players from Australia and India have already confirmed their participation and few more countries to be taken part.
Sri Lanka, Upali Rajakaruna – currently ranked at 69 is practicing to bring honor to his home land. The local team is coached by Mr Jagath Welikala and Mr PS Kumara total of 16 including top SL Players like Rajakaruna, Gamini & Perera would compete at this tournament. This tournament will enhance to get more Intl ranking points for our players for forth coming world cup in in Turkey.
Due to financial constraints, according to the SLTA, the talented wheelchair tennis players of Sri Lanka, who are Army personnel injured during the north-east civil war, are not able to compete often at international ranking tournaments where they could have bettered their impressive current rankings. This tournament will have two draws as Main & Second
‘By hosting events of this nature, we hope to help our players improve their current world rankings and, to do so, we need to attract the much needed sponsors so as to take this sport and the players forward,’ Mr PS Kumara further adds.
About Wheelchair Tennis in SL
Wheelchair Tennis was introduced to the World in 1976 and currently is one of most successful projects that the SLTA has initiated. With a vision to produce players within the World’s top 10, SLTA maintains a national pool, identifies & trains WCT players as future trainers/coaches & officials while conducting periodical awareness programmes island wide. The introduction of Wheelchair Tennis by SLTA has made it one of the most popular among the disabled sports, in Sri Lanka and is mainly patronized by the military &Differently abled Children of Sevana Lama Nivasa. Annually over 150 Wheelchair Tennis tournaments are held in the world under the supervision of International Tennis Federation.
