St Peter’s takes gold-completes rare tennis double
View(s):St Peter’s tennis players spearheaded by national junior tennis champion Nishangan Nadarajah and Chehan Fernando completed a rare tennis double having earlier won the All Island Overall Inter-Schools tennis title when they clinched the All Island National School Games tennis gold medal concluded at the SLTA courts in Greenpath recently.
In fact they had won the All Island Overall tennis title for the eighth time in the last ten years and also the rare tennis title for the second time which they themselves have done it before in the year 2007.
The doubles tennis champions St Peter’s pose for a picture.
The rising young stars in the tennis circuit Nishangan and Chehan who together combined to clinch the national junior title at the recently concluded junior tennis nationals were the go between in the Peterites success.
The feat of achieving the All Island National School Games tennis title was not an easy task for the champion Peterite team as they came into the tournament as the third favourites behind defending champions S. Thomas’ and second favourite Royal who this time was slotted to be the champions.
But it was not to be as the Peterites began their campaign with resounding wins over St. Thomas’ Prep in the first round and St Sebastian’s in the quarter-finals to make their presence felt to their strong opponents.
In the semi-finals they up against the hot favourites Royal, they showed their prowess with a remarkable and unexpected 2-0 win against the Royalists and qualify to the final where the defending champions S. Thomas’ was going to be their opponents.
In the final clash Nishangan Nadarajah gave them the start that they needed when he got the better of Anarga Peiris for the Petes to take a 1-0 lead. This was followed by the Peterite pair of Davishka Ranasinghe and Sanjeev Mohankumar putting up a pulsating performance in the three match doubles encounter.
The Thomian pair of Venuka Hulangamuwa and Avindra Perera went into the lead by taking the first set 7/5. But Davishka and Sanjeev undeterred put their heads and played a calculated game to win the next two sets 6/4, 6/2 for the Peterites to clinch the title 2-0.
The Peterite tennis team comprised of Senel Rohana (Capt), Nishangan Nadarajah, Chehan Fernando, Davishka Ranasinghe, Sanjeev Mohankumar and Nabeel Sabri.
The Peterites have got the most encouraging support from Rector Fr. Trevor Martin, Sports coordinator Fr. Sharm Dassanayake, sports secretary Troy Bartlett and master-in-charge Bernard Jesuthasan and was coached by Dinith Pathiraja who has been in charge of tennis at St Peter’s for the last seventeen years.
- M. Shamil Amit