The 18th ITF Junior World Ranking Tournament will be conducted from January 13-20, 2001 at the SLTA courts.

The events to be worked out are the under 18 boy’s and girl’s singles and doubles.

Sri Lanka’s top player, men’s national champion, Dinuka Ranaweera is expected to perform well in the boys category, while young Mahesha Seneviratne is also expected to fair well. The SLTA expects some good foreign players to participate at this tournament mainly from India and Europe.

The men’s Davis Cup pool has been undergoing training at the SLTA Courts for the past two months. Sri Lanka will compete in the Asia Oceania Davis Cup Group 3 in early Ferbruary in the Philippines. Trials for selection of the team will be held soon.

Meanwhile, the women’s players have just begun strenuous training under George Paldano. Sri Lanka will participate at the Federation Cup Group 2 in Taiwan from March 19-25. Sri Lanka’s No 1 ranked player Sobhini De Silva, Shalini Pereira, Nadeera De Silva, Samanthi Wijesekera and 14-year-old Mahesha Seneviratne comprise the women’s pool.

Just one week after the Junior World Ranking Tournament, the SLTA will host the South Asian Under 14 Championships, which will be held from January 28 to February 9. Around 50 players from nine countries are expected for this tournament. The Sri Lanka contingent has already been picked. National under 14 champion Franklin Emmanuel, N. S. Nishendran, Amrith Rupasinghe, Oshada Wijemanne and S. Shashivaran will compete in the boy’s category, while Jancy Paramanathan, D. Premananda Shanki Dandeniya, Amitha Arulpragasam and T. Abeysinghe are the girls players. Uditha Wickremasinghe and Bincy Paramanathan are the standby players. The players are undergoing a tough training schedule under Sudantha Soysa.

The SLTA will also host the World Tennis Championships Under 14 event in April. Around 100 players from 16 countries are expected to participate. All foreign participants in the three international tournaments hosted by the SLTA will stay at the Trans Asia Hotel, said Suresh Subramaniam. Chairman Tournaments and Matches.