After 2 years of dedication and commitment, 15-year-old Adithya Karunaratna becomes the youngest Sri Lankan to qualify into the main draws of the WTA circuit. She has been in the search for this spot for over a year collecting points through various ITF Futures tournaments across the globe and was shy of 1 point beginning of November.
Adithya recently competed in the three-week long Astoria Futures Tennis Championship which was hosted in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Three points away of a concrete spot in the WTA main draws at the time, Adithya managed to defeat top tier players and earn one of them. She missed out on the two final points during the third week as her journey in the tournament ended after a well fought contest.
Adithya Karunaratne takes on Astoria Women’s Futures
Re-live Adithya’s journey through the 2017 Astoria..
The chase started for two big victories in an ITF circuit match, first at the Catalunyan Women’s Open Masters Championship held in Barcelona, Spain last month. Not only did she bag one more point for the WTA’s, she went on to win the Open Championship making this her 4th Women’s Open title.
Adithya wins 4th Women’s Tennis Title
Sri Lankan born and bred Adithya Karunaratne has won..
With that win, she moved on to the Hammamet Open which is currently underway in Hammamet, Tunisia. As a wild card entry, she went up against Russian all-star Yulia Kulikova who was the clear favourite to win with a WTA singles ranking of 915 and doubles ranking of 764. In a miraculous marathon three setter, Adithya pulled through and won the first round of the tournament with a score of 5/7, 6/2, 7/5. As much as this is a big personal victory for the young player, this win will go down in history as the breakthrough victory that put her in the big seat at the WTA main draws.
Adithya will await to play the winner of Laura Tinello and Jelena Simic in the second round of the $15,000/- tournament.
