Godamanne retains title with straight sets win

by Richard DWIGHT

TENNIS: Harshana Godamanne was at his peak, in his own element serving down aces at will, to leave his rival, Rajeev Rajapakse standing in awe at the SLTA courts yesterday evening - to win through and retain the National Singles Title he won last year.

As Davis Cup players and former Royalists, Godamanne and Rajapakse further strengthened their ties through the medium of tennis. They did so on the courts at practice and training sessions and even as healthy rivals competing in the best of spirit. Being the seasoned campaigners they are, they got past the preliminaries to meet each other in yesterday’s much looked forward to final - but it fell below expectation for the dominant Godamanne to force through to finish the tie early at 6/3, 6/2, 6/0. In the first set Rajapakse began well to lead with 2 games ahead and did win another game as well, but thereafter Godamanne began serving strongly to keep scoring, he did get the best of the rallies and won the first set at 6/3.

This is how far Rajapakse could go, for with Godamanne exhibiting superb court craft and passing Rajapakse by and to leave him as well non plussed by his aces that swiftly sped on he conceded the game at 6/2. In the third set Godamanne was in a devastating mood to demolish everything that came his way and won 6/0 and the tie as well, to retain the title as singles champion.

In the Women’s Singles final, both Nilupul Gunasekera and Amirtha Muttiah had come through the preliminaries, the quarters and semi-finals to meet each other in the final which saw Muttiah win easily.

Results:

Men’s Singles finals: H. Godamanne bt R. Rajapakse 6/3, 6/2, 6/0.

Women’s Singles finals: A. Muttiah bt N. Gunasekara 6/2, 6/0.