Sri Lanka’s young, up and coming star shuttlers, Buwaneka Goonethilleka and Sachin Dias completed yet another stride in their careers, this time competing at the Sydney International Badminton Championship held in Sydney, Australia.
Sachin Dias and Buwanka Goonethilleka are living out their breakout year, competing and setting records for Sri Lanka Badminton at the Commonwealth Games as well as the Asian Games. They were the first pair to compete in a medal match at the Commonwealth Games and reached the final 8 at the Asian Games in Jakarta Indonesia, marking another first for the nation.
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The duo participated in their more dominant event, the Men’s Doubles, while Buwaneka Goonethilleka had a go at the Men’s Singles event as well. Little was expected of these two considering the facility and international exposure provided to them so far. However, the upside of it all would be the valuable BWF Points they collected which would boost their rankings for future participation.
Buwaneka Goonethilleka’s run at the Singles event came to an abrupt stop in the third round in the draw of 64, when he met tournament top seed Yu Igarashi of Japan. He was however successful in marking the first two matches to his name, defeating Wajid Ali Chaudry of Pakistan 21-10, 21-7 in the first round. His second victory came from local Jonathan Wong with a score line of 21-11, 2-12.
“අනාගතය ගැන බයයි. ඒත් ජයග්රහණ අපිට බලාපොරොත්තුවක්” – සචින් සහ බුවනෙක
කනිෂ්ඨ ක්රීඩකයින් ලෙස ක්රීඩා කරන කාලයේ සිට ශ්රී ලංකාව ජාත්යන්තර තලයේ ඉදිරියට රැගෙන …
He later teamed up with Sachin Dias for the Men’s Doubles event but the pair was knocked out in the first round. Tournament top seeds, Danny Bawa Chrisnanta and Hee Yong Kai Terry got the better of the Lankan pair in a thrilling three-set encounter.
The Singaporeans took the first set with ease, 21-11. Sachin and Buwaneka bounced back in stellar form to level the playing field with a stunning 21-17 win in the second. However, experience in the international stage played poorly in the Lankan’s case as they went down 21-16 in the final set, handing the win to Chrisananta and Terry.
The pair will begin training for the 2019 South Asian Games with dreams of winning their first medals for Sri Lanka in the major leagues.
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