by Revatha S. Silva
True, Sandaruvani de Silva lost very narrowly, in this year’s under-12 girls’ final at the Robbialac Tennis tournament, conducted by the British School in Colombo. She lost to Nilupul Sumanasekara in a tie-breaker, [the final score was 7-6 (7-4)]. But the experience she gained in that match helped Sandaruvani immensely, to gain more confidence for future games and to have a tennis career that will make her a national player one day.

Speaking to ‘The Island’ recently, this 10-year-old tennis player said that her goal is to represent Sri Lanka.

She had begun her career late in 1998 after her father introduced her to the game. During the last couple of years, Sandaruvani has been playing extremelywell, to finally enter the Junior Super Squad conducted by Krishantha Perera at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association. "It’s a privilege to train under Krishantha. Since my first coach Sisira taught me the basics, Ganendra Subra-maniam, my school coach at Bishop’s College and Shalini Perera at the SLTA have been my coaches", she said.

With the efforts being made by the SLTA to popularise tennis in the outstations, there will be a lot of competition in the future. The future holds a lot of challenges, lot of competition and only the fittest will survive in the end. Sanda-ruvani, who admires Mar-tina Hingis and Venus Williams in the international scene, is aware of this truth and knows the importance of hard training." I train three days-a-week, that’s five hours in all, these days. My greatest ‘rivals’ on court at present are Bimsy Paramanathan, Hasini Jayatillake and Nav-odi de Soyza. Some of them are older than me and I learn a lot by watching them play".

There is a huge difference between men’s tennis and women’s. The men’s game is traditionally known to be stronger and quicker. How could a girl like Sandaruvani notice this factor? When asked, she promptly answered that "women are equal to men". She continued, "I don’t feel that boys of my age are stronger."

Young Sandaruvani is still in her third year of tennis, but she has proved that she has the potential to compete with the best in the years to come.