High grade volleys during the next few days
SLTA head Iqbal Bin Issak (3rd L) receiving the sponsorship cheque
Three Sri Lankan players are among seven top ranked Indians and the Pakistani top seed when the Men’s and Women’s Asian Tennis Tour (ATT) Tournament starts tomorrow at Greenpath, Colombo 7. Within This three-day competition will be one of many international events to be hosted by the Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA).
Sri Lankan’s in the Men’s Singles will be Yasitha de Silva, Madusha Wijesooriya and Dineshkanthan Thangarajah who are in the Main Draw which features ten from three South Asian countries. Besides the Lankan trio, the Main Draw includes Indians Niki Kaliyanda, Kunal Anand, Karunuday Singh, Suraj Prabodh, Abdullah Shaikh and Jatin Dahiya, along with the versatile Heera Ashiq of Pakistan.
The qualifying group includes ten Indians and one each from Pakistan and Bangladesh, while the Alternate list includes eight Indians and two Bangladeshis. The 12 in the Qualifying List includes Indians Arnav Alok Goel, Aaditya Tewari, Himansu Sagar, Vimal Raj Jayachandran, Ojas Rathee, Maninder Singh, Hemant Kumar, Utkarsh Mishra, Preston Vaz and Sanyam Chauhan, Bangladeshi Dipu Lal and Pakistan’s Tanveer Ashiq. According to the SLTA, the Alternate List that includes eight, are tentative, while 13 players- 12 from India and one from Uzbekistan- have withdrawn from the ATT Week I Men’s Singles.
The winner will receive a cash award of US$ 5,000, which will be the prize money for the three upcoming weeks of the ATT. This will be the first occasion the SLTA is playing host to an ATT, which is one of the main projects of the Asian Tennis Federation (ATF). The ATT is planned annually by the ATF with the intention of providing professional exposure to Asian Tennis players from across 45 member-countries. The tournament also aims at opening doors for the Asian region to aspire for the more organised ITF and ATP levels.
After Week I, which ends on January 11, Week II will commence on January 13 and run for 3 days. Weeks I & II will be for Men’s Singles. The remaining 2 weeks will be for Women’s Singles. Week III of ATT will be held from January 16 to 18, with Week IV set for January 20 to 22. All games will be played at the SLTA hard courts.
Avic International Hotels Lanka Ltd, a subsidiary of Chinese mega incorporation Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), have come forward as the main sponsor of the ATT this year.