Tennis: Peterites prick favourites to pocket Under-17 title

St. Peter’s College tennis players, fresh from their triumphant win in the Under-15 age group, went on to win the All-Island Under-17 Tennis Championship held at the SLTA Courts in Greenpath, Colombo.   Starting the tournament pitted against defending the Under-17 champions Ananda College and the star studded S. Thomas’s College, Mt Lavinia, and the Peterites lacking big names of other schools were quietly confident about their abilities.   While the strong Ananda team was grouped with Royal College, St. Sebastian’s College, St. Joesph’s College and Lyceum International School in Group ‘A’, the Peterites were grouped alongside S. Thomas’ Mt Lavinia, who were considered the favorites, St. Benedict’s College and Trinity College Kandy in Group ‘B’.   Starting the tournament with a resounding win against St. Benedict’s on the first day, Peterites then produced a sound display of tennis to beat Trinity and advanced to the group decider against S. Thomas’.   All eyes of the tournament were on this match as two of the heavyweights of this age group went at each other early in the tournament to lay down a marker.   The Thomians got off to a good start as their star player Avindra Perera beat Peterite S. Innthujan 9/3 to give them the start they were looking for.   Then another of the Sri Lanka players in the Thomian team, Jerique Rajapakse teaming up with Dulitha Ellawala beat the Peterite first doubles pair 9/1 to give the Thomians breathing space.   Staring down the barrel Peterite Isuru Wijeratne had to win to keep his team in the contest.   With the scores reading 3/2 in favour of Isuru the heavens opened and the match was postponed to the next day.   Next day Isuru went onto win his match 9/2 to bring them back into the contest.   It was generally agreed that the second doubles of this tie was going to be the decider.   With Anarga Peiris and Vihan Herath for the Thomians and U. Srinath and Kavinka Fernando for the Peterites, this was expected to be a close affair.   Peterites dealt a huge psychological blow for the whole tournament by cruising to victory 9/0 to win the match.   Then Mark Seneviratne playing the final match for the Peterites recorded a 9/2 win to give Peterites the narrowest of 18/17 win against the Thomians to advance as group winners.   With Ananda beating Royal 26/9 to be the group champions in Group ‘A’ the semi-final line up was decided in the tournament.   Peterites were pitted against Royal while the Anandians were playing against the Thomians.   In the first semi-final, the Peterites quietly went about their business of defeating a gutty Royal team fighting hard against oddsand won their match 3/0.   Meanwhile the Anandians and the Thomians were having a ding dong battle in the other semi-final.   After long matches well into the afternoon with Sri Lanka representatives of both schools playing against each it was the Thomians who won a good match 3/2 to advance to the final.   Thus the stage was set for another Peterite-Thomian clash in the final.   In the final the Peterites surprised everyone by totally changing their tactics for the final from their earlier group match while the Thomians too came out with a surprise kit.   In the final Thomian Jerique Rajapakse, a Sri Lanka Junior Davis Cup player drew first blood by winning his match to give his team a 1/0 lead. In the first doubles the Peterites got their own back with the surprise combination of Isuru Wijeratne and Mark Seneviratne winning their match 6/2, 6/1 to level the final at 1/1.   Then Thomian Avindra Perera, unbeaten in the tournament and ranked the No.1 player in the country in this age group, put his team ahead by winning his match.   With the Peterites focusing on the doubles in the final the dependable pair of U. Srinath and Kavinka Fernando won their match 6/2, 6/0 to level this pulsating final at 2/2.   S. Innthujan was playing the final match for the Peterites while Anarga Peiris was playing for the Thomians in a battle that decided the title.   With Anarga staying steady from the back court and putting pressure on Innthujan this was tennis of good quality.   Innthujan won the first set 6/2 although the score does not reflect the closeness of the match.   Anarga got into a 2/1 lead in the second set but Innthujan using his vast experience started to pull away and the pressure was getting to the young Thomian.   Finally Innthujan won the set 6/2 to send the Peterites into raptures by pulling off an improbable win in this age group.   The winning Peterite team consisted of Kavinka Fernando, U. Srinath, Isuru Wijeratne, Mark Seneviratne, S. Innthujan, Meshan Nanayakkara, Adhel Reza and T. Vibhashan.   The team coached by Dinith Pathiraja receives the fullest support from Father Rector Rev. Fr Trevor Martin, Rev. Fr. Sharm Dasanayake, the Sports Coordinator and Bernard Jesuthasan, the master-in-charge of tennis.