Our players are prepared for the challenge

Sri Lanka will play hosts for the Division Three Davis Cup Tennis Tournament which will get underway tomorrow at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA) courts. The hosts will play alongside seven other countries namely Malaysia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Lebanon, Oman and Saudi Arabia on a league basis. The prize for the winners is promotion to Division Two of the Davis Cup.

The Sunday Times spoke to the first president from the outstation of the SLTA Janaka Bogollagama. He said: “This is a historic event for Sri Lanka. We will be having the official opening today will all the dignitaries. It is a young but talented team we are fielding. However, we are confident of coming on top. For the past month the team has been training in Thailand under the watchful guidance of Dominic Utzinger who incidentally trained the great Roger Federer during his formative years. In addition the squad members are also playing competitive games.”

The Lankan team comprises of Harshana Godamanna, Renok Wijemanne, Rajiv Rajapakse and Sanka Jayasekera. The reserve is Dinush Wijesuriya while one of Sri Lanka’s most capped players in Rohan De Silva is the non playing captain of the team.

Explaining further Bogollagama said “Wijemanne has played quite a few tournaments in the United States of America and has done very well. Godamanna has also done very well along with the others. Thus though they are young, they are not inexperienced. We also re-laid the surface on which the tournament will be played on. The surface is now a hard court. Our players have practiced a lot on that. Thus they will have no problems. The tournament consists of two singles matches, the reverse singles and the doubles. We lost the doubles the last time around and that cost us a place in Division Two. We do not wish to go through that heartbreak again. This is the reason why this time around we have made a huge effort to ensure that our players are prepared for the challenge. With regard to the tournament we made elaborate arrangements to ensure that tournament is a spectacular success and I must thank all the sponsors for their support to finance the training and running of this tournament.

Eight teams comprising the ‘Asia-Oceania 3 tie’ – namely Singapore, the UAE, Vietnam, Lebanon, Malaysia, Oman, Saudi Arabia along with hosts Sri Lanka will take part in this tournament and will go on till the 22nd of this month.

Our players are prepared for the challenge—SLTA President