Sharmal Dissanayake

Sharmal Dissanayake of Royal College, Colombo has brought glory to Sri Lanka tennis when he emerged as the champion at the ITF 14 years and under, zone 2 First tournament held in Kuching, Sarawak, East Malaysia last week.

This ITF 14 and under tournament is conducted by the Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association was supported by the Grand Slam development fund. Dissanayake will now be entitled to join a one day training camp after the tournament.

Dissanayake played consistently well throughout the tournament to win all his matches quite comfortably. He had a straight sets win over his Malaysian opponent in the final.
He followed it up with another impressive performance in the second tournament too. Dissanayake had no difficulty in reaching the final but unfortunately had to give a walk-over due to an injury. Thus he finished as runner-up.

This will ensure Dissanayake of a place in the ITF team to play in the Zone I tournament to be held in China this year. Dissanayake has already represented this ITF team in Zone one during the years 2008 and 2009.

If Sharmal Dissanayake does well in this tournament he will be selected to represent the ITF Asian Team that will tour Europe for six weeks during the course of this year.

Alex Fairbanks who also competed in this tournament finished fourth in the first tournament but finished fifth in the second tournament.