Thilini regains supremacy
It was only last year that the
lass from Kandy created Olympic history. She became the first ever woman
shuttler to represent Sri Lanka in the century year old history of the
Olympic Games.
  She is none other than Thilini Jayasinghe, who took Sri Lanka’s
women’s badminton to Olympic heights with a bang. But immediately after
she fulfilled her Olympic dream, she faced a setback when she went down
to a little known schoolgirl at last year’s Sri Lanka National Champion.
True that Jayasinghe could not regain the national women’s singles
‘crown’ but the 24-year-old lass from the hill capital regained lost
supremacy at the recent Nationalised Services Open Championship not only
beating that little-known schoolgirl who upset the Olympian, but also
the reigning women’s singles champion.
The recent Nationalised Services Open Championship wrote a new
chapter in Jayasinghe’s career as she regained her supremacy, winning
both the women’s singles and women’s doubles titles - thus proving that
she is still the beat amongst women shuttlers in Sri Lanka.
On her way to the women’s singles ‘crown’, Jayasinghe humbled the
reigning Sri Lanka national champion Chandrika de Silva in the
semi-finals 21-15, 10-21, 21-15. Jayasinghe was simply unstoppable in
the final, thrashing schoolgirl Achini Ratnasiri in straight sets 21-9,
21-12.
Incidentally, Jayasinghe’s partner in the women’s doubles was young
Ratnasiri. The pair beat Subodha Dahanayake, Gayani Perera, also in
straight sets 25-23, 21-14 in the women’s doubles final.
Jayasinghe thanked her employer - Sampath Bank, for supporting her to
go places in the international badminton arena. She said her next aim is
to improve her world rankings and play in a few top grade tournaments in
Europe and Asia.
The Lankan badminton queen said her final target would be the 2012
Olympic Games in London. “I am happy that I made it to Beijing Olympics.
My final aim too would be a repeat performance. I will work hard and
play even harder to earn a place at the next Olympics. Prior to that, I
want to play in a few good international ranking tournaments,” a
confident Jayasinghe said. |
