SLTA to construct six hard courts

By Lal Gunesekera

The Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA) are to construct six hard courts at the National Tennis Centre (NTC) in Greenpath at a cost of Rs. 2.5 million for each court.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the SLTA, Lionel Almeida, told the Sunday Observer that they have earmarked six clay courts which will be turned into all weather hard courts. Work is to commence at the end of next month (November) or early December, and will take about three months to complete.

Almeida went on to say that the President of the SLTA, Suresh Subramaniam, is very keen on this project and that the SLTA has so far collected about Rs. 4 million.

He said that the SLTA are very confident of raising the balance finances without any difficulty. He further said that the SLTA has only 1 1/2 hard courts at the moment, and with six more coming up, they (the SLTA) will face no problem when conducting tournaments even if it rains.

They have 12 clay courts with the SLTA (Playing Section) in possession of six more. Almeida also said that two International Tennis Federation (ITF) Men's Futures tournaments which were scheduled to have been worked off in Colombo end November-December with prize money amounting to Rs. 1.5 million for each, will not be staged this year.

He said: "We were unable to find sponsors for "various reasons" and that the SLTA will inform the ITF of their inability to stage these events in Colombo this year.