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| Sunday, 14 December 2003 |
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Ex-Indian champ Piperno coaches Lankan Davis Cup squad by Lal Gunasekera Former Indian No. 1 and Davis Cup player, Enrice Piperno will be the coach of Sri Lanka's Davis Cup squad which is now preparing to play in the Asia/Oceania Zone Group IV Tournament to be staged in Jordan from April 16 to 21 next year (2004). Piperno, who won Sri Lanka's national men's doubles title in 1978 with Lasantha Fernando, is the coach of Mahes Bhupathi also of India who is faring very well on the professional circuit. Fernando, who also represented Sri Lanka in the Davis Cup (1964, 1967, 1975, 1976) and away in the USA for several years, is now back. Fernando has been appointed as Sri Lanka's non-playing captain. President of Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA), Suresh Subramaniam told the 'Sunday Observer' that the SLTA has picked a pool of 17-players who are now in training under Lasantha Fernando for the moment. They are - Franklyn Emmannual, Rohan de Silva, N.S. Nishendran, Amrith Rupasinghe, Oshada Wijemanne, Sashi Sabanathan, Harshana Godamanne, Sasith and Udith Wickremasinghe, C. Vidanaratchi, Dinusha Wijesuriya, Yaveen Jayasekera, Sohan Prick, Krishan Sudusinghe, Rajiv Rajapakse, Dinanjaya Mayadunne and Renouk Wimenanne. Subramaniam further disclosed that Franklyn Emmanual and Amrith Rupasinghe will be on a three-month tour from the second week of January where they will be engaged in tournaments in India, Bangladesh and Indonesia. He said, "Rohan de Silva is available only for three tournaments in India and Bangladesh, and another player will be picked to play alongside Emmanual and Rupasinghe. He also said that the Junior Davis Cup (Asia/Oceania Zone) is to be staged at the National Tennis Centre (NTC) in Greenpath for the first occasion in the third week of April next year and entries closing on December 31, with the International Tennis Federation (ITF) which decided that Sri Lanka should host this event at its meeting held in Bangkok, Thailand last week. This year 24 countries vied for honours in Indonesia where Sri Lanka were placed fifth. Juniors touring Myanmar Two schoolboys from St. Peter's (Dinesh Khanthan and P. Niroshan) and one from Wennappuwa's Jennings International School (Mishal Sinnen) have been named together with Amitha Arudpragasam (Colombo International School), Jithmi Jayawickreme (Bishop's) and Hasini Jayatilleke (Stafford International School) have been picked to figure at the ITF Under-14 (Zone II) Junior International Championships to be worked off in Yangon, Myanmar from January 9 to 20. There are tow "back to back" tournaments during this period and the players will be ranked by the ITF. The Lankan juniors will play in both the singles and doubles events and players from 14 countries will make every attempt to finish within the top four of the boys and girls events to play in Zone-I later next year (2004). The 14 countries in the fray are - Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldive Islands, Korea, Vietnam, Brunei, Mongolia, Pakistan, Laos, Singapore and Myanmar. |
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