109th National Tennis Championship from tomorrow

The officials of SLTA along with the sponsors posing for a pickup after receiving the sponsorship packages from left Nithiniyanfan Sylan, Tournament Director, Chamod Rupassara, Tournament Referee, Pradeep Goonesekera, Secretary SLTA, Upul Adikari, Head of Marketing HNB, Iqbal Bin Isaack, President SLTA, Ranjan Hanchapola, CEO Turbo Energy Drink, Dinuka Ranaweera, Director 3G Sports, Anupa Maththamagoda, Head of Sports Development and Ganendran Subramaniam, Tournament Organizer.   

By M. Shamil Amit   
The 109th National Tennis Championship conducted by the Sri Lanka Tennis Association is scheduled to get underway from August 16 and slotted to end on September 1 and scheduled to be played at the SLTA tennis courts and in four other venues being SLTA playing section, SSC tennis courts, Police SC and at the Government SC tennis courts.  
To corporates in the likes of HNB PLC, Head Sport,Turbo have come forward as sponsors to make this championship a success.  
Much interest has been shown where as the participation is concerned with over 1400 players being involved from the age groups of under 12 to 18 and the men’s, women’s and mixed open events. Along with these the SLTA has made arrangements to conduct tournaments for seniors from the age group of over 35 to 65 and also the wheelchair tennis national championship.   
Defending champions in the men’s and women’s categories Ashen Silva and Dinara de Silva who emerged champion at just 14 years will seek to retain the title but they will face stiff opposition from their victims in last year’s final Chathurya Nilaweera and Anjalika Kurera.   
Young de Silva has had a successful stint in recent years as she bagged the Under 16 and 18 titles in the year 2022 and was also the runner up in the open women’s doubles event last year and she will no doubt be the cynosure of all eyes.