Dineshkanthan’s ground strokes too much for Jayawickrema
Thangarajah Dineshkanthan conjured up a dazzling array of thunderous ground strokes to power through to a 6-4, 6-2, 7-6 (7-3) win over an extremely tenacious Amresh Jayawickrema and claim the 98th Colombo Championships at the SLTA Courts yesterday.
Dineshkanthan slices the ball back. - Pic by Indika Handuwala
Dineshkanthan’s explosive hitting from the back of the court pummeled Jayawickrema into submission early on and he raced to an early break before taking the first set 6-4 with an ace.
Jayawickrema though was finding his feet and stroking the ball with increased confidence. Nevertheless, Dineshkanthan was finding answers for everything whizzing at him from the other end of the net and quickly broke Jayawickrema’s serve and held his own to lead 3-1.
Dineshkanthan broke once again to notch up a commanding 5-2 lead and stepped onto the clay to serve for a decisive two-set lead. However, there were rumblings of resistance from Jayawickrema, The errors that had been coming thick and fast during the early portion of the match had lessened, and he strongly challenged Dineshkanthan’s service as the tournament top seed stepped up to serve for the set.
Several rasping strokes into the game and Dineshkanthan was down 0-30 and staring at a possible late momentum shift. He was forced to dig deep to bring things to 30-30 before eventually snatching the set with an emphatic smash.
With the arrival of the third set came a renewed sense of urgency in Jayawickrema’s play and he upped the intensity noticeably, tearing towards the net and scrambling along the baseline to fetch some fiery forehands and backhands from Dineshkanthan.
The game then witnessed an exchange of service breaks as the momentum swung regularly between both men in the third set. Dineshkanthan’s serve was looking a lot more vulnerable and immediately after he had broken Jayawickrema for a 2-1 lead he surrendered his own serve to tie things up at 2-2.
As Dineshkanthan broke back to make the score 5-4 and earn an opportunity to serve for the match, Jayawickrema once again place pressure on his service, before it eventually wilted.
Jayawickrema though could not consolidate the break and handed the initiative back to Dineshkanthan as he had his own serve broken. For the second time Dineshkanthan stepped up to serve out the match only to watch helplessly once again as Jayawickrema converted another break point to send things to a tie-breaker.There would be no mistake from Dineshkanthan this time though, as he punished Jayawickrema down both the forehand and backhand wings to race to 6-3, before his opponent sent the ball sailing wide on match point to deliver him the title. In the women’s category
Nethmi Waduge beat Roshenka Fernando 1-6, 6-2, 7-6 (1)
Follow @timesonlinelk
comments powered by Disqus