The prestigious Sri Lanka Tennis Nationals, one of the most historic annual sporting events in the country which is held in its 94th year this time, will be sponsored by ‘Kohler,’ an international manufacture company centred in Kohler, Wisconsin, USA, and best known for its plumbing products.

The sponsorship monies worth Rs.600,000 were ceremonially presented to the Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA) at a media briefing held at the SLTA headquarters in Colombo on August 19 (Wednesday) by Pashupati Kundu, Regional Sales Manager of ‘Kohler,’ which has been founded in 1873, decades before the Lankan tennis Nationals began in Nuwara Eliya, by an Austrian immigrant named John Michael Kohler.

Kundu, addressing the gathering on Wednesday, said their association with the SLTA would be a long term one while expressing his company’s desire to collaborate with the SLTA on its future endeavours, such as conducting international tournaments and spreading tennis outside Colombo.

Meanwhile, Maxwell de Silva, President, SLTA, said they were ready for a long journey with their new sponsor so as to achieve greater heights in local tennis.

"This (the union between the SLTA and ‘Kohler’) won’t be a short term affair but an association which would end up in marriage one day," quipped de Silva.

Rasika de Silva, Sales Manager of Sri Lanka for ‘Kohler,’ reiterated that their ambition was to help Sri Lankan tennis in years to come.

Boshan Dayaratne, Gen. Secretary, SLTA, and Lt. Col. Shiran Abeysekera, one of the Vice Presidents of the SLTA and the Tournament Director of the forthcoming Nationals, were also present.

This year’s Nationals will begin on August 29, following the completion of the ongoing Junior Nationals at the same venue, and will go on till September 13. The entries will close on August 21 before the draw scheduled for August 26 at the SLTA. There will be handy prize money for winners and runners-up of all major winners. High on the list are Rs.70,000 and 40,000 which will be on offer for the Men’s and Women’s Singles winners.

The Referee of the Tournament will be Avantha Suranimala. Dunlop will be the official ball of this year’s Nationals. Harshana Godamanna and Jithmie Jayawickrema were the winners of the Men’s and Women’s Singles titles respectively in last year’s Nationals.

Elaborating on the technicalities of this plum competition of the tennis calendar year, Aasiri Iddamalgoda, one of the Vice Presidents and Head of the Tournaments and Matches Committee of the SLTA, said the Men’s Singles and Doubles of the Nationals will be considered a preparatory event for selecting the pool for next year’s mega event, the Davis Cup Asia-Oceania Zone Group-II.

"The matches will be held in a best-of-five format in accordance with the Davis Cup Group-II format. We’re hoping to pick a pool of about six or eight players aiming for the first two ties of the Davis Cup which will be held early next year," said Iddamalgoda.

Answering a question, he further added the selectors were not in a position to consider overseas-based players, like Franklyn Emmanuel, Oshada Wijemanne and Amrith Rupasinghe, for the national team selections since they were not willing to take part in any of the local tournaments.

"They should be willing to participate in local tournaments at least when they are here on their holidays."

"We’re going to start our preparations sooner than last year because Group-II will be tougher (SL is playing in Davis Cup Group-II after 10 years). The SLTA will be given funds by the Davis Cup organiser (unlike in Group-III ties) and we hope to receive more funds from the local Sports Ministry as well. The ministry has been cooperating with us in the recent past," added Iddamalgoda.

Iddamalgoda further said the seedings of all categories of the Nationals were based on local ranking points each player has achieved but in both Men’s Open Singles and Doubles, the leading national players, Harshana Godamanna and Rajeev Rajapakse, were seeded on top without taking their local ranking points into consideration. The duo didn’t take part in many of the local circuit tourneys in recent times but are still expected to perform better than the rest of the other top players.

A new tennis website was launched during the media briefing held in connection with the 94th SL Tennis Nationals at the SLTA.

A commercially oriented website carrying the address ‘www.tennislk.com’ was launched by Susantha Pinto of Infotechs International (Pvt.) Ltd., the host of the site, along with Maxwell de Silva of the SLTA and Pashupathi Kundu of ‘Kohler,’ the sponsor of this year’s SL Tennis Nationals.

The new website, probably the third such site dedicated to Sri Lanka tennis —other than ‘www.srilankatennis.org’ and ‘www.3gsportsonline.com’— will focus on providing its viewers, especially those who are living abroad, information and news on local players, tournaments and clubs.