Ravindu Laksiri, third seed in the Mens Open category and Mihiliya Methsarani ,top seed in the Womens open category went on to clinch the top spots at the 33rd Senior National Squash Championships held at The Air Force Squash complex in Rathmalana.
The tournament which was organized and conducted by the Sri Lanka Squash Federation was sponsored by Janashakthi Insurance Pvt Ltd.
Ravindu Laksiri overcame top seed and eight times Senior National Champion Navin Samarasinghe in a hectic five setter in the semifinal before overcoming bottom seed Dilshan Gunawardena in the same manner in the final. Dilshan who qualified for the final overcoming Gihan Suwaris in the semifinal went on to take the initial lead winning the first set at 11/9.However Ravindu bounced back taking the second set at 11/8 to level the scores. The third set ended in a tie breaker and Dilshan narrowly came on top of Ravindu taking the third set at 12/10 to take the lead once again. However Ravindu who played the game of his life to beat Navin Samarasinghe in the semifinal continued the same strategy of retrieving many dead winners and counter attacking with powerful winners giving no time for the opponent to recover. This paved way for the youngster to win the last two sets at 11/2 and 11/5 to clinch his maiden Senior National Championship.
In the Mens open third fourth play-off Top seed Navin Samarasinghe beat Gihan Suwaris in a four setter after losing the first set at 11/7.Navin won the last three sets at 11/9,11/3 and 11/9 to clean up things after unexpectedly losing in the semifinals.
The womens open finals saw Mihiliya Methsarani defending her title for the second consecutive year. Mihiliya overcame bottom seed Naduni Gunawardena in a four setter with the final scores on 14/12, 11/2, 9/11 and 11/5.The first set saw Mihiliya being dragged for a tie breaker before taking the initial two sets. Mihiliya lost the third set at 11/9 in a tight game before wrapping up the match taking the last set quite easily at 11/5.
Kasuni Gunawardena finished third in the womens open category after receiving a walk over from Nadindi Udangawa in the third fourth playoff.
The performances of the two youngsters namely Mihiliya Methsarani and Ravindu Laksiri were quite remarkable as it was these two who represented Sri Lanka at the Youth Asian Games where Mihiliya went on to grab a Bronze medal putting Sri Lanka on a top spot in the International Arena. Also this was the first time the two junior National Champions went on to win the senior National Championship in the same year.
The Mens open plate event saw much experienced Christopher De Saram outplaying upcoming junior player Druwinka Perera in a tightly contested four setter with the final scores on 12/10, 8/11,11/4 and 11/3.Druwinka who took the Asian Boys u -15 top seed for a five setter in the quarter finals in the Asian junior Squash championships gave a good fight proving his mettle before going down in the final.
This tournament marked the end of a hectic year for the Sri Lanka Squash Federation who organizes the National ranking tournaments apart from their involvement in conducting refereeing seminars and coaching camps in order to improve the standards of the game and popularize the game in the island nation.
