The Sri Lankan girls’ team, who had remained unbeaten throughout, even overthrowing the top seeded team of the tournament – Singapore – unfortunately dropped at the peak when they lost to Kyrgyzstan, 2-0 in the final of the Junior Davis Cup/ Junior Fed Cup Asia Oceania Pre-Qualifying tournament.
Playing excellent tennis, Sri Lanka’s Anya Gunawardene and Anika Seneviratne, along with Janali Manamperi, defeated Cambodia and Oman in the Group D matches, no. 2 ranked Lebanon and no. 1 Singapore in the play-offs to qualify to the finals.
The first singles of the finale against Kyrgyzstan was played by Gunawardene versus Emma Nurgazieva at Gymkhana Club courts. Nurgazieva, who had lost only one match in the entire tournament dominated Gunawardene and won in straight sets, 2-6, 2-6.
Saara Kunakunova and Manamperi, both who had winning streaks in the tournament, played the second singles. The writing seemed to be on the wall for Manamperi when she lost her first set 1-6, but she bounced back in full force to win the next two sets, 6-4, 6-3 and win the match.
Sri Lankan team to battle it out in the semifinals
For both teams who had won one match each, the doubles was the decider of the Champion team. Gunawardene partnered with Seneviratne while Kunakunova paired up with Nurgazieva – both duos determined to put up a good fight. In their attempts to overcome their opponents, Sri Lanka and Kyrgyzstan displayed brilliant skill in their games resulting a nail-biting tie-breaker in the first set. This was won by Kyrgyzstan, wobbling the Lankans’ confidence, which gradually led to their loss in the next set, 3-6 and Kyrgyzstan’s overall victory.
The Sri Lankan boys’ vision to win the tournament was passed off as a mere dream when they lost in the semi-final round against Syria. Avindra Perera, Inthujan Selvaratnarajah and Vibuda Wijewardena lost all three of the matches and had to play the consolation final game against Turkmenistan for third place. The odds seemed to be in favour of Perera in the beginning of play against his opponent Arslan Orashev, allowing him to win the first set, 1-6. However, his quality of play waivered in the next sets and he was effortlessly defeated, 7-6(2) 6-3. With two singles already won, the players of Turkmenistan had already won the play-off and therefore, gave a walkover in the doubles.
Concluding the tournament, the boys’ final was played at SLTA courts between Syria and tournament favourites, Kazakhstan. Mohamad Naw of Syria, conquered his Kazakh opponent in the first singles, scoring 2-6, 2-6, to remain unbeaten in the tournament, giving the Syrians, the underdogs, the upper hand of play. However, the Syrians’ high hopes were questioned when Rabee Sleem lost his match against Shohrukh Gairotov, 6-3 4-6 7-5. The doubles, the judge of the ultimate winner, was a show of Syrian prowess on the court as they outshone the Kazakhs win Junior Davis Cup gold.
