After a month of exciting tennis action, the 101st edition of the Colombo Championships come to a close with the finals of the Men’s Open Doubles being worked off yesterday at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association playing section.
A total of 32 events took place over a week’s duration and Pakistan national Heera Ashiq was the main highlight of the tournament winning both the Men’s Open Singles as well as the Men’s Open Doubles while Nethmi Waduge and Anika Seneviratne took the honour of winning two titles each.
The former Sri Lanka national champion, Heera Ashiq out witted the Davis Cup player Nishangan Nadaraja in the finals of the Men’s Open to win this year’s title while the 20 year old Nadaraja took the runner-up spot. Top-seeded player Yasitha De Silva lost to Nadaraja in the semi-final.
Heera Ashiq later teamed up with his sibling Tanveer Ashiq and defeated Sanka Atukorale & Yasitha De Silva in the final to win the 101st Colombo Championships Men’s Open Doubles. The doubles final that was played yesterday (31st) saw the Pakistan duo rushing to a 6-2, 7-5 & 6-2 win against the Sri Lankan counterparts. With Heera Ashiq winning the doubles, he achieves a rare feat of winning both the singles and the doubles titles in the Colombo Championships.
19-year-old Nethmi Waduge had the privilege of defending her Women’s Open Singles title for the second successive year as she went on to defeat Anika Seneviratne 7-5, 6-3 in the finals. Finishing runner-up in the Open category, the sixteen year old Anika Seneviratne went on win the Girls’ under 18 title defeating Sathi Silva 6-3, 7-5.
The Nethmi-Anika duo later teamed up in the Women’s Open doubles and defeated Shalini De Silva and Shenalie Weerasekara to win the open doubles title. With only three doubles teams listed in the Open category, the Nethmi-Anika duo defeated the other two teams without an effort to take the title.
Colombo International School player Aadhaven Pushparaj came out on top winning the under 18 title while in the junior division it was Anjalika Kurera who won both the Girls Under 12 Singles & Under 14 Singles.
