Amrita clears first hurdle with ease
Current women’s tennis national champion Amritha Muttiah needed little time to get her campaign off and running as she drubbed an overmatched Oshani Wickremasinghe 6-1, 6-1, during their preliminary round match of the 98th Sri Lanka Nationals, which was
Amrita Muttiah (left) and Anish Wijesinghe, the Under-16 Boys’ Singles winner, in action yesterday. - Pix by M.A. Pushpakumara and Amila Gamage
worked off at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association courts yesterday.
Muttiah simply had too much firepower for Wickremasinghe. Her vicious ground strokes and service returns decimated her opponent’s unsteady serve and Wickremasinghe could only watch as the games rapidly rolled past her during the opening set. She succeeded in holding her serve only once and not surprisingly, after a flurry of ferocious winners, the opening set was in Muttiah’s bag.
The second set’s narrative was identical to the first’s, with Wickremasinghe holding
serve only once. In Wickremasinghe’s defense, the defending champ was in sublime form and when she latched onto any short balls she was merciless. On match point Muttiah let rip with a rasping forehand, which was limply played back into the net to give her a convincing opening victory.
Earlier in the day the defending men’s champion Thangarajah Dineshkanthan annihilated his opening round opponent, Vihan Herath 6-0, 6-0. Fresh off a spectacular performance at the Colombo Championships, Dineshkanthan is the clear favourite to take the trophy with his only possible competition for the title likely to come from fellow Davis Cup player Amresh Jayawickrama. Jayawickrama too enjoyed a straightforward route into the second round after he dismantled Amith Weerasinghe 6-0, 6-1.
The Under 16 finals of the Junior Nationals was also played yesterday and saw a stunning upset as top seed Chehan Fernando was beaten by a resurgent Anish Wijesinghe 3-2, 6-1, 6-4. In some of the day’s other games Tanveer Ashiq overwhelmed Prasanna Athauda 6-2, 6-0, Yasitha de Silva stunned seventh seed Aritha Weerasinghe 6-4, 6-3 and sixth seed Sankha Athukorale beat Kasun Wickramasiri 6-0, 6-0.
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