Fifteen year old Avindra Perera back-handed himself into the reckoning and the record books when he became the youngest player to take the U 18 boys title while as expected Nethmi Waduge bagged the U 18 girls title at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association Wednesday morning.
Thisuri Molligoda and Nethmi Waduge – colleagues, team mates and the best of friends faced off in a remarkable match with hopes of winning the girls U-18 Nationals title. The two Junior Fed Cup team members showed nothing but class and dignity as they fought in a two setter with the scores ending at 6/3, 6/4 in favor of the recently crowned Colombo Championships Winner, Ms. Nethmi Waduge.
Although the scores may indicate an easy win with just two breaks of serves for Waduge, the content of the match was worth all of 2 hours. The long rallies and quality of tennis was well worthy for the keen spectators who filled both sides of the centre court this morning.
As Nethmi celebrated her win, the 8th seed underdog, Avindra Perera, saw himself down a set far too quickly in the finals of the boys U-18 finals. His opponent Aadavan Pushparaj, the unseeded player managed to bag the first set of the three set thriller, with one break of serve at 6 games to 4. Avindra tried a clever defense tactic in the first set against the powerful attacks from Aadavan, which didn’t work in his favor in the end. This is when the Avindra stood up tall and began the second set with his usual style and attacked with his signature shots. As it was proved yesterday in the semi-finals against Chehan, the aggressive plays of Avindra did the trick as he won the next two sets comfortably with the scores 6/4, 6/0. Fifteen year old Avindra bagged the U 18 title as the youngest to do so.
Anika Seneviratne advanced to the semi-finals in the girls U-14 age group today after a hard fought three setter between 8th seed Neyara Weerawansa. The remaining quarter final matches are scheduled for the 13th Thursday along with the quarter final matches in the boys U-16 age group.
Play will commence at 08.30am
