The 26th Junior International Tennis Federation (ITF) tournament will get underway at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) Courts on Tuesday. Nearly 60 competitors from countries such as India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Canada, Great Britain, China, Thailand, United States of America, Finland, France, Japan, Phillipppines and hosts Sri Lanka will vie for honours in the boys and girls category with Lankan Jithmie Jayawickrema the draw card in the girls segment.

Meanwhile the Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA) has re-launched an improved development and coaching programe. And the new initiative for coaching of tennis players will cover the programme carried out at the National Tennis Center (NTC) as well as the Junior Tennis Initiative launched in 10 regions.

Many of the past national players like Harshana Godamana, Udith Wickramasinghe, Sasith
Wickramasinghe and Sanka Athukorala have rallied round the SLTA to voluntarily help juniors. The SLTA expects the best juniors to be in the program within a month. Already players like Jithmi Jayawickrama, Amritha Mutthaiah, Amaresh Jayawickrama, Arthur Hewakottage, Shehan Gomez , Thuruna Eswarage, Dhanuk Withana, Shereen Wijesinghe, Kemali Herath have joined this program.

Meanwhile the Junior Tennis Initiative involves strengthening the Mini Tennis program together with a junior player development program. This project covers regions like Colombo, Negombo, Bandarawela, Kurunegala, Matale, Kalutara, Ratnapura, Batticalloa, Kandy and Jaffna. The SLTA is expecting to produce a minimum of 2000 talented junior players by the end of 2009.