Sports

Sports

Amritha Muttiah to the fore
By Shamseer Jaleel
AMRITHA Muttiah, of Holy Family Convent Bambalapitiya, created history at the Junior tennis championships when she became the first Sri Lankan girl to emerge number one at the International Tennis Federation (ITF) under-14 Asian Championships (Group 2) tournament.

The 13-year-old HFC lass produced the best individual performance in two back-to-back tournaments held last week in Yangon, Myanmar to top a list of 26 players from 10 countries. But two other Sri Lankan schoolgirls, Shenani Weerasekera (Asian International) and Bishop College’s Shanalle Abeysekera were less successful. They finished 15th and 18th respectively.

In the first Yangon tournament Amritha Muttiah won the Girls Singles title, but finished third in the second event. Overall, however, her record was the best among the 26 girls – and earned her the right to represent the ITF Girls’ team at the under-14 Asian Championship, in Hong Kong in March this year.

Royal College’s Indika Wettasinghe also earned a ticket to Hong Kong by finishing fourth, out of 28 players, in the boys’ championships. The top five in the boys and girls events qualify for ITF selection. Wettasinghe clinched fourth place by being a semifinalist in the first tournament and quarterfinalist in the next. But his schoolmate Sheahan Gomes could manage to end up 21st while St. Peter’s schoolboy Tharaka Fernando finished 23rd.

The under-14 championships are an undertaking of the ITF to develop tennis worldwide, especially in developing countries. The January 7-17 events in the capital of old Burma featured players from 10 countries – Myanmar, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia. Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan.

Since the above tournament in Myanmar and the Margaret Court Invitation to our junior players to Australia were at the same time a few young players missed out on the Myanmar tour.

Top