The Asian Tennis Federation (ATF) is a body that is closely affiliated with the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and its primary goal is to develop the standard of tennis in Asia as well as create awareness regarding the sport with the hope of producing top ranking players from the Asian continent.
One of the main initiatives taken by the ATF in its bid to achieve the above mentioned goals is the organizing of a circuit of under 14 tournaments held in a vast number of countries spanning the Asia Pacific region.
The Sri Lanka Tennis Association has played host to two back to back tournaments for a number of years and will continue to do so for the year 2014. Both tournaments are scheduled to feature boys and girls singles and doubles events and will also showcase young talent hailing from countries such as Sri Lanka, India, Australia, Bahrain and the Philippines.
The first tournament is set to commence on the 2nd of September and the second tournament will commence the following week. The seedings for the first week of matches are as follows.
Boy’s under 14 singles
SeedingNameCountryATF rank
1Thevan PereraSri Lanka157
2Seth Manal AlgamaSri Lanka167
3Rahul JaideepIndia207
4Praneel JasingheSri Lanka213
5Vikum JayasuriyaSri Lanka273
Girls under 14 singles
SeedingNameCountryATF rank
1Anya GunewardenaSri Lanka31
2Monica CruzPhilippines42
3Janali ManamperiSri Lanka65
4Anika SeneviratneSri Lanka72
5Aadhya ChalaIndia74
The Papare.com was able to catch up with the tournament referee Dharaka Ellawala who also happened to be the referee of the 99th National Tennis Championship which concluded one week ago. He had the following remarks to make regarding the tournament. ‘Tournaments of this nature are a means of wonderful exposure for the local players as they get a chance to showcase their talent on an international platform enabling them to gauge their standard in comparison to other juniors from different countries’. ‘As a referee international tournaments such as these enable me to broaden my horizons as well as give me an opportunity to gain more experience which will help my career as a referee’ he reiterated.
The Papare.com also takes this opportunity to wish all the juniors participating in the tournament the best of luck ahead of what is sure to be two weeks of scintillating tennis.
