The prize money factor is not a very serious issue in Sri Lankan sports, except, of course, in the unofficial national sport of this island, cricket. One needs to have some encouragement, motivation and incentive to hang on to a sport and to ensue a career in that. The global reality in our times is nothing but (hunger for) money, the sole motivational factor to have a long running, successful sporting career in any sport.

In this case, the well-known parallel one finds in Buddhist literature comes to mind. Money had been compared to a snake and, traditionally, the Buddhist monks are not permitted even to touch money– as it would bite like a snake!

With the advent of the ‘Singhalese Sports Club Open’ tennis tourney that will begin on June 23, the ‘prize money talk’ comes to town in the local (Colombo-centred) tennis fraternity.

The highest prize money open tourney of the calendar year, the ‘SSC Open’ will offer Rs.100,000 each for both the Men’s and Women’s Singles winners. There will be prize money on offer to the semi-finalists of every Singles event as well. There will be prize money to the quarter-finalists in the Men’s Open Singles too."

This is virtually a hitherto non-existed situation in this country, with regard to the game of tennis, until the ‘SSC Open’ came in a few years ago.

There was a similar event, like the ‘SSC Open,’ which came to an end last Sunday (8) at the prestigious Hilton Residence tower at Union Place, Colombo-2. It was the ‘Hilton Residence Tennis Gala.’ Due to the lucrative sponsorship, this tournament, which the organisers called ‘a fun event,’ usually offers grand awards for its winners.

In spite of it being ‘a gala event,’ that was held to encourage the Hilton Residence occupants and tennis juniors for competition, it once used to attract over a half a dozen of national Davis Cup players, simply because of the grand prizes the tournament offered.

The media once noted how the tennis newcomers missed their chances in this amateur tourney due to a high number participation of top level national players clearly to grab the cellular phones and foreign trips, etc. that were on offer for the winners of the main titles. A tragic, if not dreadful, scenario…

The glamour of the event had faded markedly this year since there were only two Davis Cup nationals taking part. They were Rohan de Silva and Ganendran Subramaniam who eventually won the Men’s Doubles title beating Udith Wickremasinghe and Nishendiran Sivendiran in the first-to-reach-nine-games finals.

Both Wickremasinghe and Roshenka Fernando won the main Men’s and Women’s Singles titles ousting Amresh Jayawickrema and Renee Rober Bon in the finals of the two respective events.

The Holton Residence Tennis Gala was sponsored this year by the ‘Standard Chartered Bank.’ The SSC Open has a few sponsors this year. They are: ‘Bank of Ceylon’ ‘Citi Group,’ ‘Fontera’ and ‘Ole’ and ‘Soliki Sports.’ These sponsors, most of the time, see that the organisers attract some top and renowned players to these events by pledging them attractive prize money, many other presents and prizes.

What else is there, other than money, to attract players to sports? How much money do the sports personalities need as their monthly salaries, earnings, when they take up a sport as a career?

Arjuna Ranatunga, present Sri Lanka Cricket Interim Committee Chairman, told this writer in 2004 that the national level cricketers’ wages, given by the country’s cricket board, has to be cut down drastically. Why? He argued there should be some symmetry in the salaries earned by the common man (the sports spectators who cheer ‘Sana’ and ‘Ara’ and so on) and the money earned by the national cricketers.

Prize money is a tricky thing in sports. In these strange days, tricky things, though, take centre stage. People nowadays don’t often call money ‘the snake.’