The tennis players of St. Peter’s College, Bambalapitiya, once again performed brilliantly at the recently concluded open tennis tournament at Bandarawela, organised by the Banadarawela Tennis Club in association with the Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA). This tournament was the 2nd leg of the three upcountry tennis tourneys conducted by the SLTA during the mid year season.

In the Under-12 boys’ event, Chehan Fernando of St. Peter’s emerged champion by defeating Joshua Jayaratne 6-2, 6-0 in the final.

In the Under-14, the Peterite dominance was even more apparent. The final was contested by two Peterites, Aritha Weerasinghe and Nishangan Nadarajah, and the former won 6-4, 3-6, 11-9 in a closely contested final. Sanjeev Mohankumar, another Peterite, lost in the semi-finals of the event against Nadarajah.

Both Weerasinghe and Nadarajah are part of the Sri Lanka National U-14 tennis team which is due to tour Malaysia for the World Junior Asian Qualifiers. Another member of that U-14 team is Aaron Assauw, who is yet another Peterite.

In the Boys’ Under-18 event at Bandarawela, Chintaka Shaveen reached the quarter-final losing to the eventual champion in that age group. Along the way to his quarter-final, Shaveen defeated Thuruna Rajapakse 6-4, 6-1 in straight sets. Thuruna was a member of the SL Junior Davis cup team which recently toured Myanmar. Chintaka reached the quarter-finals of the Open Men’s singles as if to signal another Peterite prospect in the making.

In the open events, Peterite Thangarajah Dineshkanthan completed a triple by winning the Men’s Singles, Men’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles events. In the Men’s Singles final, he defeated Amresh Jayawickrema in a closely contested match 7-6 (-), 6-7 (-), 10-8. Then Dineshkanthan teamed up with Jayawickrema to win the Men’s doubles defeating Shehan Gomez and Sylvester Francis 7-5, 6-3 in the final. In the Mixed Doubles, he teamed up with Jithmie Jayawickrema and beat Francis and Thavindra Ekanayake 6-3, 6-0 to complete a grand triple.

The St. Peter’s tennis team is coached by Dinith Pathiraja.