Nabeel Sabri created a major upset in the boys’ under-12 category when he defeated top seed Joshua Jayaratne in the semi-final at the 95th Colombo Tennis Championship continued at the SLTA clay courts yesterday.
Jayaratne has been unbeaten in this age group this year and has been unbeaten in the lesser age groups in the previous years, met with his waterloo in the morning.
Sabri played a near perfect game and forced Jayaratne into making the mistakes and lose points in the process. Sabri won on straight sets 6/2, 6/0 and this speaks for itself on how well he played.
Bottom seed Anthony de Silva also won his game against Aadavan Pushparaj in straight sets to enter the final and will meet Sabri who is the third seed.
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| Yasitha de Silva in action against Shabir Husair in the U-18 boys semi-final clash. |
Unseeded Thisuri Molligoda also created an upset when she defeated top seed Shankari Thayakaran to take the girls’ under-16 singles title.
Molligoda who has displayed vast improvement in her game, played impeccably well to get the better of Thayakaran who was favourite to win.
Molligoda who is tall now and is still growing, used her height to good use and placed her shots to land away from Thayakaran. After taking the first set on 6/3, she tended to relax a bit and lost the second set on 2/6.
Molligoda came back strongly in the third set and won on 6/1.
Amritha Muttiah who is unseeded for unknown reasons, took the girls’ under-18 title when she overwhelmed Nilushi Fernando in the final.
Muttiah who is the country’s women’s singles champion, played immaculately well and placed her shots to be out of reach of Fernando. Muttiah earned her points in this manner through her experience gained by playing against tougher opponents in the recent past. Muttiah gave away only one point in each of the two sets.
The boys’ under-16 singles semi-finals saw Nishangan Nadarajah and Aritha Weerasinghe enter the final in the morning.
Nadarajah won the first set against Thaaquib Nazar on 6/1 and Nazar conceded a walk-over without playing any further.
However, Weerasinghe was made to work hard for his win over the unpredictable Sandesh Mendis who had earlier created two upsets to enter the semi-finals. Mendis took the first set on 7/5 and looked set to create another major upset but Weerasinghe had other ideas. He played to the weakness of Mendis who made several unforced errors to lose points needlessly.
Weerasinghe also played cleverly to change the pace occasionally and ended up the winner of the next two sets on 6/4, 6/3. He will now meet Nadarajah in the final to be played today.
The boys’ under-18 singles event saw top seed Ashan Dep beat Nadarajah 6/4, 6/4 to enter the final and fourth seed Yasitha de Silva beat sixth seed Shabir Husair 6/3, 6/3 in the other semi-final. |
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