Deepika Rodrigo crashes out

Former national TT women’s champion Deepika Rodrigo of Lake House crashed to Upeksha Fernando of Mt. Lavinia High School by 5 sets to 1 in the quarter-finals of the Women’s Singles at the Ashok Melvani Memorial Open Invitation championships continued at the S. Thomas’ College gymnasium yesterday. The competition reaches the final day today.

Deepika Rodrigo made several mistakes and Upekha capitalized on them to win the game 13-11, 11-5, 11-8, 8-11. 13-11. In the last set Deepika took the lead at 7-2 and went into attack and lost the game against the chopping of Upekha.

Upekha, an Advanced Level student, played a patient game and took all the opportunities that came her way to triumph. In the last set Deepika made more than six errors. If she had played patiently she could have defeated Upekha. In the Women’s Doubles pre-quarters, bottom seed Mauli Peiris and Tharanga de Silva lost to unseeded Nirmani Silva and Ruvni Weerasekera 13-11, 11-7, 11-8. However they lost to Jayamali Udagedera and Srimali Wimalaratne in the quarter finals.In the Women’s Singles bottom seed Ruwanthi Wijekoon lost to Nadini Samaraweera 11-6, 11-9, 11-1.