Sri Lanka’s wheelchair tennis team led by Tokyo Paralympian Ranjan Dharmasena will be participating in the BNP Paribas World Cup Wheelchair Tennis Tournament to be held in Sardinia, Italy from October 4 to 10.
The team comprise Dharmasena as the number one player in Sri Lanka and ITF rank 64, Dissanayake M. Gamini (81) the number two and Lasantha Ranaweera (85) who is the number three in Sri Lanka. They are undergoing training under the expert guidance of coach Jagath Welikala who has been with wheelchair tennis players for the past 19 years and has produced world class players who have excelled at international tournaments.
He is assisted by Gayanga Weerasekera who is just two months with these players. They have been training at the SLTA courts at Sir Marcus Fernando Mawatha since July especially for this important event.
Before that the team will leave for Holland today (19) to undergo further training under the Dutch coach who will offer specialised technical advice.
“The team is doing well at training and are housed at the SLTA premises during these days. They are also assisted by the Sports Ministry. They have also been given the two vaccinations to stay safe from the Covid-19 and follow all health guidelines,” said Welikala.
“Sri Lanka did well in a tournament held in Portugal and later at the tournament for countries in the Asian region. They lost to Israel but beat Croatia and Greece to get a wild card entry for this World Cup tournament final,” added Welikala. In all 16 teams will participate in this World Cup.
Some of the other teams are USA, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Great Britain, Netherlands, South Korea, Japan, Poland, Austria and Italy.