Wheelchair tennis – a hectic schedule, but going great guns
The Sri Lanka Tennis Association did a yeoman service by hosting three back to back International Wheelchair Tennis futures and a World Cup qualifying Asia region tournament. It was a shot in the arm especially for the local players by participating and urther improving their rankings.
The concluded tournaments were the 5th Negombo open which was held from Feb,15th to 17th, the 9th Sri Lanka open from Feb,19th to 21st at SLTA courts and the 7th SSC open from Feb,23rd to 25th at SSC courts.
The final tournament will be World Team Regional Qualifiers- Asia, from Feb, 27th to 1st March again at the SLTA courts. These futures tournaments would have USD 2,500/- in prize money and one of the highest purses tournament in Sri Lanka tennis in the ITF NEC series on the calendar. The three futures tournament indeed attracted overseas players apart from the Sri Lankans (12), South Korea(8), France (2), Russia (1), India (3), South Africa (2), Japan (3), Spain (2), Hungary(2), Iran(3)Malaysia (6) and China ( 14).There are high ranking players in the 20’s from South Korea and Japan who will participate.
The Sri Lankan players are coached by Jagath Welikala and overlooked by P.S. Kumara, a total of two draws including players like Rajakaruna, Gamini, Dharmaratne and Wijesiri. Majority of the Sri Lankan players are from the Army. The interesting fact is Sri Lanka wheel chair tennis players have higher rankings than the Sri Lanka tennis players. In the just concluded Negombo open, in the Mens singles main draw, Zujun Wei, the unranked and unseeded player from China, defeated the South Korean, Ha-Gel-Lee, the 42nd ranked player 6-2,6-3 in the finals.
The Sri Lankan player Gamini Dissanayake (Ranked 111th), entered the quarters but lost to Don Shunjiang of China, who is ranked 13 places below him by 2-6, 3-6. In the Women’s singles finals top ranked Zhenzhen Zhu of China downed her fellow country mate Jin Lian Huang 6-1, 6-2. In the Men’s doubles final Ha-Gel-Lee and Sang-Ho-Oh of South Korea came on top against the two Sri Lankans R.A.L.S. Ranaweera and W.P.J. Wijesiri 4-1,4-2. In the Women’s doubles final, it was an all China affair as Hui Min Huang and Zhenzhen Zu defeated the Jin Lian Huang and Qing Xian Huang 4-0, 4-1
Next in the Sri Lanka open at the SLTA courts, in the Men’s finals, the unranked Chinese Zujun Wei repeated his feat again by beating Francesc Tur of Spain, the world 38th ranked player and 4th seeded in the tournament, 6-0, 6-2 — a great performance indeed by Wei. Three Sri Lankan players namely W.K.G. Nadeeka, K.A. Dharmakirthi and R.A.L.S. Ranaweera came to the second round. In the Men’s grouping two, Men’s singles main draw, In the finals Sri Lanka’s unranked, unseeded player H.M.L. Senaratne defeated Malaysia’s Firdaus Ibrahim by 6-3,6-2. In the Women’s singles main draw finals, it was an all China affair with Zhenzhen Zhu (Ranked 25), the number one seeded player defeated Ziying Wang (Ranked 36), the number two seeded player by 6-3,6-2. In the Men’s double final it was all a Korean affair.
The number two seeded Ha-Gel-Lee and Sang-Ho-Oh (Ranked 85), was declared the winner after winning the first set 6-1 by defeating number one seeded Ho-Won -I m and Ji –Hwan-Lee (Ranked 61). The second set was not played as Ho-Won-I m/ and Ji-Hwan-Lee were declared retired. Finally in the women’s finals China’s number one seeded Hui Min Huang and Zhenzhen Zhu (Ranked 96) defeated their country mates the unseeded Jin Lian Huang and Qing Xian Huang by 6-1 and 6-3. The Wheel chair tennis in Sri Lanka so far is going from strength to strength and it will continue to do so.