Women’s Open Singles champion Dinethya Dharmaratne is the only Sri Lankan tennis player to have gone a long way in the first week of the ITF Junior Tennis Tournament now being held at the SSC courts at Maitland Place.
She entered the semi-final and was playing against Tara Aleksic of Australia who had upset the bottom seed P. Shanthamoorthi of India in the first round.
Of the other girls Dinara de Silva, the fifth seed, lost in the quarter-final to Sofie Hettlerrova of Czechoslovakia. Saajida Razick, seeded seventh, lost in the second round.
The boys’ doubles pair of Methvan Wijemanne and Zaidh Zihar did well to reach the final and lost to Jheng Min Huang and Chin-Tai Wu of Taipei in straight sets 3-6, 3-6.
The first week of this tournament will end today and the second week will begin on Monday (29).
The Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) is organizing two back-to-back ITF International Tennis Federation Junior Tournaments on their clay courts at Maitland Place.
The boys who had entered are 40 foreign entries from India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, USA, UK, Japan, Malaysia, China and Germany.
There are 20 entries from Sri Lanka.
The girls who have entered are 41 foreign entries from India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, USA, Korea, Australia, Malaysia, China, Germany, Sweden and Japan. There are 12 entries from Sri Lanka.
The first tournament (week one) is scheduled to take place from May 20 to 28 followed by week two from May 29 to June 5.