Sri Lanka makes determined effort to gain promotion
 

By Lal Gunesekera

Sri Lanka who are making a quest to gain promotion to Group II of the Davis Cup (Asia/Oceania Zone) leaves for Thailand on July 5 for yet another training stint at the Asian Tennis Academy and then proceed directly to Manila, Philippines for their Group III games which are scheduled from July 17 to 23.

Sri Lanka will be represented by veteran Rohan de Silva, Harshana Godamanne, Rajiv Rajapakse and Amrith Rupasinghe with another veteran Davis Cup player, Jayendra Wijeyesekera, as the non-playing captain and Wasantha Wijesekera as manager. Sri Lanka are in Group III together with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Singapore, Iran, Vietnam and the Philippines.

They will come under the watchful eye of Swiss coach, Dominik Ulzinger, who is the Director of Coaching at the Asian Tennis Academy in Thailand. He will accompany the Sri Lanka team to Manila. He was in Colombo for two weeks in May with the Davis Cup pool. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA) Lionel Almeida, told the Sunday Observer that the SLTA are having discussions with Ulzinger for him to be in-charge of coaching at the SLTA on a three-year assignment from January next year (2007) along with an assistant. This is going to cost the SLTA about US Dollars 8,000/= per month for both.

Almeida also disclosed that top women's professionals in the calibre of Sania Mirza of India, Martina Hingis of Switzerland and Miskina are likely to play in Colombo next year at a Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Circuit.