Tennis: Godamanna qualifies to two semi-finals at Sri Lanka F2 Futures

Harshana Godamanna kept Sri Lanka’s flag flying high when he qualified to two semi-finals of the ongoing Sri Lanka F2 Futures tennis tournament which is being played at the SLTA clay courts in Greenpath, Colombo. 

Godamanna who was unable to play in the previous tournament, held two weeks ago became the only Sri Lanka player to reach the singles semi-final which he did in the morning session on Saturday (1) morning. 

Godamanna though, was given a tough time in the first and second round matches that he played against fourth seeded Fabrizio Ornago of Italy and Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam of India which both he won with the identical winning margin of 2-1 was leading 4-0 in the first set against Nicholas Bybel of USA in the quarter-final encounter before the latter retired due to a cramp which saw Godamanna advancing to the semi-final. 

Later in the afternoon session Godamanna partnered by Sharmal Dissanayake pulled off an upset win when the duo outclassed the top seeded pair of Carlo Boluda Purkiss/Mario Vilella Martinez of Spain to cruise through to the semis. 

Meanwhile Sumit Nagal who won the singles title in the first tournament and who is also the top seeded player had an easy passage to the semi-finals with a comfortable win as he along with Carlo Boluda Purkiss of Spain and Alessandro Petrone of Italy were the other players to qualify to the semi-finals. 

Results: 

Semi-finals: 

Singles: Harshana Godamanna (Sri Lanka) beat Nicholas Bybel (USA) 1-0 (4/1, rtd); Sumit Nagal (India) beat Alexander Zhurbin (Russia) 2-0 (6/1, 6/3); Carlo Boluda Purkiss (Spain) beat Sidharth Rawat (India) 2-0 (6/3, 6/1); Alessandro Petrone (Italy) beat Mario Vilella Martinez (Spain) 2-0 (7/5, 2/0rtd). 

Doubles: Sharmal Dissanayake/Harshana Godamanna (Sri Lanka) beat Carlo Boluda Purkiss/Mario Vilella Martinez (Spain) 2-0 (6/2, 6/4); Philip Bachmair/Peter Godlsteiner (Austria) beat Vignesh Peranmallur/Surat Prabodh (India) 2-0 (6/4, 6/4).