Promising table tennis player Senura Silva is ambitious to win a gold medal at the South Asian Games and is hard at training.
The 15 year old from Ananda College won the junior National championship in 2018 and 2019 and was adjudged the most outstanding player on both occasions. He was able to win four titles, the under-15, under-18 singles events, under-18 doubles and mixed doubles events.
Senura Silva is born to parents of table tennis fame. His father Indika Prasad was a national runner-up and his mother Deepika Rodrigo was a woman’s national champion. They are behind the success of their son Senura.
Senura has been watching his parents play from childhood. He began playing at the age of four years.
He is currently ranked third in the men’s Open category and is a top ranked junior player.
A Gold medalist at the 2019 South Asian Hopes, Cadet and Junior Table Tennis Championship, Nepal, he represented the Sri Lanka senior national team at the 24th Asian Table Tennis championship in Indonesia in 2019. In addition he was the youngest table tennis competitor at the 2019 South Asian Games held in Kathmandu, Nepal to became the first Anandian to represent Sri Lanka in the sport being a member of the bronze medal winning team.
“My father Indika is my coach and mother Deepika always encourages me to go forward. I was just eight years old when I won my first local tournament the Western Province event. I first represented Sri Lanka at the junior level at the age of 11 in 2016 and the senior category at the age of 14 in 2019,” said Senura.
“I practice about three hours a day. I am confident of achieving my goals with hard work and training. I am grateful to all the support I received, especially from my former Principal Kithsiri Liyanagamage and present Principal S.M. Keerthiratne at Ananda College,” said Senura who has received a two-year scholarship from the National Olympic Committee’s Crysbro Next Olympic hope project.