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| Sunday, 3 February 2002 |
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Three players book places in Sri Lankan Davis Cup team by LAL GUNESEKERA Three players have already made certain of their berths to represent Sri Lanka at the Davis Cup (Asia/Oceania Zone Group IV) Championship to be staged from March 18 to 24 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. According to a senior official of the Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA), Rajiv Rajapakse (reigning national champion), Franklyn Emmanual and Oshada Wijemanne have played themselves into the side, while the fourth and final member of the side is to be picked this week. Amrith Rupasinghe, Harshana Godamanne and Shamalan Sabanathan are "fighting-it-out" for the final berth. The non-playing captain will be Sanjay Wijemanne (who is also a national selector) with Irshad Othman as manger. The Lankan team is scheduled to leave on March 15. Sri Lanka are in Group 'B' together with Bangladesh, Jordan and Oman while Brunei, Bahrain and Tajikistan are in Group 'A'. Sri Lanka were demoted to play in Group IV last year (2001) after losing to Qatar 1-2 in the relegation tie after beating Bahrain 2-1 and losing to both Singapore 1-2 and the Philippines 0-2 in Manila. Earlier, Sri Lanka entered the semi-finals of Group II for four years (1989 to 1992) and escaped relegation in 1993, 1994 and 1996 beating Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran. However, Sri Lanka, were demoted to Group III in 1997, 1998, 2000 and gained promotions again to Group II in 1999 only to lose to Iran 2-3. Futures tourney The first-leg of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Men's Futures Championship featuring world ranked players will be worked off at the National Tennis Centre (NTC) in Greenpath from March 4 to 10. The second-leg is at Chennai, India from March 11 to 17 and the third at Delhi from March 18 to 24. A spokesman for the SLTA said there will be 64 entries for the singles in the qualifying rounds to be staged on March 2 and 3 and eight only for the doubles. The main draw for the singles will be 32 and doubles 16. There will be four 'wild card' entries from Sri Lanka for the singles (two for the main draw and two to qualify). Meanwhile, the qualifying rounds for boys of the World Junior (Under-14) Championship (Asia/Oceania Zone) too will be staged at the NTC from April 29 to May 5, while the girls events are to be worked off during the same period in Indonesia. "The ITF does not allocate the same country to stage this tournament in consecutive years, but after strong appeals were made by our Chief Executive Officer, Deshan Dayaratne, and Vice-President, Suresh Subramaniam, they (the ITF) decided to give Sri Lanka to stage the boys event only," said SLTA spokesman. |
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