Sri Lanka Junior National player and Davis Cup team member Nethmi Waduge secured the Women’s Open Singles title defeating Medhira Samarasinghe while seeded player Yasith De Silva took home the celebrated Men’s title.
Waduge who faced Medhira Samarasinghe at the finals had it easy as the 18-year-old Visakhian defeated her opponent 6-2, 6-4 to take the 2016 title. Coming into the final after defeating the experienced Amritha Muttiah, Medhira Samarasinghe was expected to perform better in the final against Nethmi.
Medhira however, got her hands on the under 18 title when she defeated Anika Seneviratne 4-6, 6-3, 6-1. Having lost the first set, Samarasinghe went on to win the next two sealing the win in the under 18 category.
After weeks of postponement, the Men’s final got underway and the Davis Cup team player Yasith De Silva emerged victorious defeating Bangladeshi national Delwar Hossain in the final. The final was an easy encounter for the Sri Lankan who won the game 6-1, 6-0 & 6-4. It was a tough path for Yasith De Silva in the qualifying rounds as he had to come up against Nishangan Nadarajah in semi-finals. Losing the first set to Nadarajah 2-6, De Silva fought back in the next three sets to win the game 6-4, 6-3 & 7-6(5).
Amritha Muttiah and Roshenka Fernando secured a third place spot in the Women’s while Mohamed Shaakir and Nishangan Nadarajah did so in the Men’s tournament.
In the junior under 18 title run, the defending national champion Avindra Perera was defeated by Manal Algama after Perera retired as the scores read 4-3. It was an unfortunate blow for the Thomian Avindra who was not fully fit to play the final.
The remaining set of matches are expected to be played during the next few days and the tournament is expected to be completed by the end of the week.
List of winners as at 14th June 2016:
Men’s Open Singles
1 Yasitha De Silva
2 Delwar Hossain
3 M.A Shaakir
3 Nishangan Nadaraja
Boy’s under 18 Singles
1 Manal Algama
2 Avindra Perera
3 Vibuda Wijebandara
3 Udayachandran Srinath
Women’s Open Singles
1 Nethmi Waduge
2 Medhira Samarasinghe
3 Amritha Muttiah
3 Roshenka Fernando
Girl’s under 14 Singles
1 Anjalika Kurera
2 Samadhi Jayasinghe
3 Alana Seneviratne
3 Savini Jayasuriya
Girl’s under 18 Singles
1 Medhira Samarasinghe
2 Anika Seneviratne
3 Janali Manamperi
3 Tarah Greig
