Adithya shows what little girls are made of once again
The only problem Adithya Karunaratne and Medira Samarasinghe faced during their Asian Tennis Federation (ATF) Under 14 doubles’ final came not from across the net but from the heavens above, as the rain offered a momentary respite for Janali Manamperi and Tarah Greig before they were eventually drowned 6-0, 6-1 in a one-sided fixture at the SLTA courts yesterday.
Karunaratne and Samarasinghe simply possessed too much pure blunt force in their ground-strokes for the error-filled games of their mismatched opponents. Karunaratne played a dominant role in the victorious pair’s performance, dictating play with booming forehands and backhands that were punctuated by heavy grunts.
ATP Under-14 Girls’ Double winners Adithya Karunaratne (R) and Medira Samarasinghe (L) in action at the SLTA courts yesterday. - Pic by Amila Gamage
The savage baseline barrage began from the game’s opening stanza and continued through an opening set where Manamperi and Greig saw games rapidly trickle through their fingers. They simply could not find any response to the raw aggression of their opponents.
Every time one of them would strike the ball crisply to either Karunaratne or Samarasinghe, the ball would return with stinging interest. Only the rain break halted the onslaught, but the rest did nothing to stymie the avalanche of winners that had engulfed Manamperi and Greig.
With the first set gone 6-0 and the second set following a similar narrative, the match was serving more as an exhibition of Karunaratne and Samarasinghe’s skill rather than an even-keeled tussle. Mercifully for their challengers- who only managed to secure a single game from the entire match-their ordeal was short-lived, ending when Karunaratne punctured their jugular with a ferocious flurry of rasping forehands. The doubles win gave Adithya her second title of the championships’ first week, after she got the better of Medira Samarasinghe in a tight contest which ended 3-6, 6-2, 10-8.
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