Dinethya Dharmarathne bagged the girls’ under 10 singles title defeating Akithma Dias at the 23rd Junior Nationals Tennis Tournament.
An interesting clash between the top and bottom seeds of the girls under 10 rankings saw Dharmaratne take on Dias, in a 9 game highly energetic match. Top seed Dinethya managed to beat her closest competition by 9 games to 3 and take home the trophy of the youngest age group at this prestigious event.
The boys’ under 16 final is scheduled to be played tomorrow (Sunday) after the two thrilling semifinal matches played this morning. The first semifinal was between the recently crowned under 18 champ, Avindra Perera and Texas talent Savith Weerasinghe.
This tightly contested match was a real crowd pleaser as it was a three setter with a magnificent comeback from Avindra in the second set. Savith Weerasinghe put all his international training into play from the start of the match to grab the first set 6/1, leaving no room for Avindra to gain momentum.
But it was in the second set that Avindra pulled a fast one on Savith and changed his game plan entirely, gaining complete control of the match from the start of the very first game of the second set. Avindra went onto brake Weerasinghe’s serve twice and win that set 6/3, taking the match into a decider. Even though Savith tried to turn the match around in his favor, Avindra left no chance for errors on his end and finished the match off in style, winning the third set 6/2.
A dejavu final from two days back was repeated today as 16 year old Aadavan Pushparaj beat Nuwantha Dissanayake in a tight two setter (6/3, 7/5) in the second semifinals, and will face Avindra Perera again in the finals of the under 16 age category. This match will draw in many spectators as one and all will be curious to watch Aadavan try and avenge his loss of the under 18 finals, in their second meeting of this tournament. This match is scheduled to be played at 08.30am tomorrow.
That is not the only finals that’s happening tomorrow at SLTA, as the girls under 14 final match is also scheduled to be played at 09.30am. This will also be a very interesting game to watch as Prabbudhi Perera will be facing Anika Seneviratne; This face-off happened two months ago at the girls under 14 singles finals of the SSC Open Ranking Tennis Tournament where Anika Seneviratne turned out victorious. Tomorrow’s match will give Prabbudhi a second chance to beat the top seed and gain the title for herself.
