Tennis prodigy Adithya gets world ranking
Sri Lanka's future Tennis star Adithya Karunaratne is making strides at global level
It has been almost one year since 14- year-old Adithya’s Karunaratne moved to Barcelona, Spain following remarkable success in the Asian tennis circuit.
She is growing from strength to strength where she has proven to be in par with the European top level standards under the intensive training and coaching of Spanish tennis legend Joan Balcells, David Olles and a team of tennis professionals in the tennis capital of the world.
The latest development in Adithya’s tennis career is that she has started taking part in more Women’s open tournaments in the Catalunyan (Barcelona) tennis circuit. This is in preparation for her next level with the focus on the Pro circuit tournaments.
One of her biggest achievements in 2016 was the winning of the Catalunyan Women’s Open Masters Championship in Barcelona, which was the Year End Grand Finale of the above circuit held in December 2016.
For this tournament, only eight players were chosen based on performance throughout the year. Adithya had been chosen based on the talent whereas the other seven players were qualified based on performance and national ranking.
This tournament was a real test for Adithya in which she was able to overcome her opponent Esther Lopez, who is two years older and was the top seeded player. Lopez is a member of the Junior National team in Spain and the current National Champion of Catalunya.
Moving on with greater confidence, Adithya triumphed in the very first Women’s Open tournament of 2017 in the same Catalunyan circuit, by beating Nadja Bay who is another promising player in Spain.
Following her first title in the International Tennis Federation (ITF) 18/U in Sri Lanka, at the age of 13, Adithya went on to have a healthy run in the ITF 18/U Junior world ranking tournaments.
She won six titles at the age of 14, which earned her highest career world rank of 205, in January 2017. In addition to her six wins, she has shown her prowess in the ITF 18/U circuit by being a finalist, semi-finalist and quarter-finalist across Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Her achievements became colourful when Adithya displayed a powerful performance against some top players in the world who are fairly older than Adithya.
Some of her best encounters in 2016 and 2017 are as follows.
At the B2 ITF in Korea (October 2016), Adithya beat Australia’s 16/U number one (ITF ranked 40 and current second highest ITF ranker in Australia) Baijing Lin who is a Fed Cup member and Australian Open Junior Quarter-Finalist in 2016.
At the Catalunyan Women’s Open tournament in 2016, Adithya had a marginal loss in a thrilling three setter against Marina Bassols Ribera who was the junior number one of Europe tennis in 2015.
At the ITF in East Africa (January 2017) Adithya defeated Ana Maria Jovanovic of France who is nationally ranked number two in 18/U.
Adithya also made Sri Lanka proud by claiming the number one spot in Hong Kong, China where she received two national number one awards for both 16/U and 18/U for 2016.
This is truly a remarkable achievement to be a number one in a division one tennis playing nation. Hong Kong was number six in the ITF World Juniors Tennis tournament in 2016. In addition, she was selected by the ITF for the U16 Asian team with a full paid tennis tour of one month. However, she did not participate due to her busy schedule in Spain.
In Sri Lankan women’s tennis, Adithya is the only player who has gone this far in world’s tennis circuit as well as Asian tennis.
Adithya’s proud mother, Gothami speaking to the Sunday Times about her daughters’ success mentioned that the long term working relationship with the same team of coaches helped her tremendously.
She also said that it was Adithya’s keenness in battling with stronger players in helped her. At the age of 12, after being number one in Asia 14/U, Adithya stopped playing the age category-wise tennis and focused on ITF 18/U.
She always has a very positive attitude which makes easy to work with her. Her goal is to improve her shots from every part of the court, not only from baseline, in order to be a complete player.
Adithya speaking, said that she enjoys her move to Barcelona Spain where she is privileged to undergo best coaching and world class intensive training. She is greatly thankful for the huge commitment and support from Joan and David for being strong pillars behind her progress in all departments of the game.
She also extends her gratitude to her first coach Shalini de Silva for showing her the path and making the right foundation, her coaches in Hong Kong Benny Lin, coach Lin and Bhagat Singh and coach Charles for giving her the strong fundamentals and right techniques.
She is also thankful to the Sri Lanka Tennis Association officials for their continued behind the screen support. She also appreciates the support of Maxwell de Silva for the encouragement to go beyond and Rohan de Silva for coaching in Sri Lanka for her first 14/U ATF title and first 18/U ITF title which were very memorable and sentimental. She did not forget to mention the motivation from warm smiles that she received from all SLTA ground staff and in conclusion she said my aim is bring honour to my motherland and I am grateful to my beloved father and mother who has been a tower of strength to me and lastly I’m determined to bore fruit and fulfill their wishes.