The fifth initiation of the Junior Tennis Ten’s will come alive this weekend starting from Friday at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association courts with the participation of over 800 young players between the ages of 6 and 10.
Photo Album – All Island Inter-Schools Tennis 10s Press Conference
The Junior Tennis or Tennis 10’s is an initiative by the International Tennis Federation where the budding tennis players are given the opportunity to build their skills and talents in the early years. There are three types of balls used for this purposes with the intention of the kids getting accustomed to the playing conditions of the spin and bounce. The three balls respectively are the red, orange and the green which are for the different age categories.
Speaking at the press conference, President of the Sri Lanka Tennis Association Iqbal Bin Issac pointed out the widespread reach of the Junior Tennis initiative around the country ranging from Batticaloa to Ratnapura.
“We have around 6000 mini tennis players in the country in ten regions. It is a notable fact that the current national champion Dineshkanthan Thangarajah also came through the mini tennis initiative.”
Started in 2010, Sri Lanka was also accredited the award for the best mini tennis initiative in the Asia region by the ITF. Since then the tournament has been held annually and has attracted fair amounts of players but this time around the turnout has been massive and thus the organizers have limited each school to two teams in each segment.
“With over 600+ kids flocking the SLTA courts on Friday alongside their parents which will add up to around 1000+, we are in for one of our biggest tournaments ever” added the President.
A record total of 100 teams will participate in this year’s tournament and each age group competition will be worked off on a round robin basis. The final rounds of the tournament will be played on Sunday 1st of November 2015 that would be followed by an award ceremony.
The tournament is sponsored by Nestle Sri Lanka who has been an empowering force behind school sports for over three decades.
