Top seed Dineshkanthan cruise through with ease
View(s):Thangarajah Dineshkanthan the top seed in the men’s open singles of the 100th Colombo Tennis Championship which is in progress now at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA) clay courts in Greenpath , Colombo had an easy in a first round encounter played in the morning session yesterday.
Pic by Ranjith Perera
Dineshkanthan cruised through to a convincing 2-0 (6/3, 4/0) win over Neshan Gunasekera who retired halfway stage of the second set. In the other first round matches that were played saw second seeded Sankha Athukorala record a 2-0 win over Akila Vimukthi, Wasantha de Costa overcame Chalanka Samith and Delwar Hossein got the better of S. Sanjeewa with the same winning margin.
In the men’s open doubles top seeded pair Heera and Tanveer Ashiq second seeded pair of Sanka Athukoral/Yasitha de Silva and third seeded pair Thangarajah Dineshakanthan/Sharmal Dissanayake received byes while Nevinda de Silva/Archana Lokuge, T. Bahirathan/I. Vijayakanth, Rohan de Silva/Jayendra Wijesekera won their first round matches and the pair of Samitha Hettiaraarachchi/Kasun Wicktamasiri received a walk over to advance to the quarter-finals.
In the women’s open singles the top four seeded players Amritha Muttiah, Nethmi Waduge, Thisuri Molligoda and Medira Samarasinghe along with Rukshan Abdeen and Anika Seneviratne received byes while Hasindhi Lokuge and Shenalie Weerasekera won their first round matches to advance to the quarter- finals.
Meanwhile the second round singles and doubles matches of the junior categories of both boys and girls comprising the age groups of U12, U14, U16 and U18 are scheduled to be worked off from 8.30 a.m. onwards today.
Four second round singles matches is also scheduled to be played along with two women’s quarter finals and one men’s doubles quarter final. In the women’s quarter finals top seed Amrith Muttiah will meet Hasindhi Lokuge and third seeded Thisuri Molligoda will clash against Rukshan Abdeen. -MSA