International Wheelchair Tennis Open Tournament

137

The Singhalese Sports Club announced, that they would be hosting the 4th consecutive International Wheelchair Tennis Open Tournament from the 25 – 27 Feb 2013 at SSC courts Colombo 7.

This tournament would be a US$ 2000 prize money tournament and a significant wheelchair tennis tournament on the ITF Future Series NEC series on the calendar.

This year’s event too has 2 Platinum Sponsors, Diesel & Motor Engineering PLC (DIMO) and Bank of Ceylon (BOC). The official ball HEAD, is sponsored by 3G Sports.

The Singhalese Sports club is thankful to all these sponsors who have willingly come forward to support this event from the inception at SSC.

The NEC Wheelchair Tennis Touroriginated 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, theNEC 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 Touris 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.

This tournament will attract top ranking wheelchair tennis players from the world and players from Australia and India have already confirmed their participation while a few more are to be confirmed.

Sri Lanka, Upali Rajakaruna – currently ranked at 69 is practicing to bring honor to his home land. The local team is coached by Mr JagathWelikala and Mr PS Kumara. A total of 16players including top Sri Lankaplayers like Rajakaruna, Gamini&Perera  would compete at this tournament.  This tournament will enable all players to get more International ranking points for the 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 want to attract the much needed sponsors so as to take this sport and the players forward,’ MrGihan Perera, The Chairman of the organizing committee of SSC 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 161 Wheelchair Tennis tournaments are held in the world under the supervision of International Tennis Federation with the sponsorship of NEC. 

About SSC

Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC), which is located in the heart of Colombo,was established in 1899.and is one of oldest Tennis Clubs in Asia. It is a premier Sports Club in Sri Lanka with over 7000 members and is equipped with Gymnasium,Indoor Badminton and Squash Courts, Swimming Pool, International Test Cricket Grounds, Bar and Restaurant facilities, Badminton Complex, Squash Complex  and a Tennis Complex with 5 flood lit Tennis courts.