SLTA expects to recommence season with Clay Court Tourney
Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA) is expecting to recommence its competitions that were suspended due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, which brought the whole nation into a standstill for almost two months.
Explaining on the development, the President of SLTA, Iqbal Bin Isaac stated that the Clay Court National Championship, which was stalled midway due to the pandemic, would be completed once the situation turns back to normalcy.
The 3rd SLTA Clay Court Nationals commenced on March 13 and was supposed to end by March 26 at its facility in Green Path, but was put on hold. The organisers could only hold few matches of the preliminary round before the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to all sports activities in Sri Lanka as well as throughout the globe.
Explaining further Bin Isaac stated that the SLTA had a busy domestic tournament schedule in 2020, but due to the restrictions, it would have to forego some of its listed competitions. But SLTA is keen to complete the Clay Court Nationals, once they obtain clearance from the higher authorities. The competition included 27 categories under Junior, Open, Masters and Wheelchair segments with Hutch Telecom and Hatton National Bank coming forward as sponsors.
According to the SLTA events calendar, the month of April was supposed to be a heavy one with five competitions listed, but organisers of all events took the decision to postpone them indefinitely. The list included Maroons Weekend Championship, Kandy Weekend Championship (from April 3 to 5), Hill Club Championship in Nuwara Eliya (April 9 to 14), Bandarawela Championship (April 15 to 20) and the Matale Championship (April 24 to 26). Sri Lanka was gearing up to play host to the two legs of the ITF Under-18 International Junior Championship during end April and early May, but the two-legged competition too was postponed. The SLTA has requested International Tennis Federation (ITF) to provide new dates to host the postponed event, and Bin Isaac expects a positive reaction from the global governing body.
“We are hoping the ITF would reschedule the tournament for October,” he stated.
Accordingly the SLTA is now gearing up to host the ITF Under-18 International Junior Championship through October 19 to November 1, instead of April 20 to May 2. In addition Sri Lanka is expected to host two more International Junior Championships from September 7 to 20 and if all works well SLTA will have a busy period from August in preparing for the four competitions.
“However a number of competitions that were lined up for June and July could be cancelled as we are uncertain of the near future,” added Bin Isaac.
The competitions lined up for May were St. Peter’s Championship (8 to 10) and Otters SC Championship (15 to 24) and the popular Negombo Championship was scheduled to be held from June 5 to 14 followed by the Kurunegala Junior Championship from June 26 to 28).
If the pandemic situation improves by August SLTA expects to complete the 105th National Championship as scheduled from August 14 to 30 at Green Path.