Sherene Wijesingha - Most Promising and Popular Junior Tennis Player

TENNIS: The Bishop’s College girl 15-year-old Sherene Jennifer Wijesingha went the honour of being voted in as the Most Popular Junior Sportswoman in Sri Lanka at the National Sports Honours Awards 2008.

The award was made by the Minister of Sports and Recreation Gamini Lokuge and the selection was made by a panel headed by D.B. Dhanayake of the Ministry of Sports.

Sherene Wijesinghe received 14,477 votes and led from start to finish in the competition.

She excelled in tennis in the local and international scene in 2007 which turned out to be the best year and she made Sri Lanka and the SLTA proud of her achievements. She was ranked No. 6 in Asia in the girls 14 and under age group in 2007 and this is the best performance by a Sri Lankan boy or girl in the Australian Open sponsored by Tennis Australia.

Sherene was a student of Bishop’s College which won the Schools Championships in 2007 too. She represented Sri Lanka at the World Junior Tournament in 2007 and toured Pakistan too with the under-14 team. She was also the only Sri Lankan to be selected to tour Indonesia in 1007 on that performance.

Again she was the only Sri Lankan to tour Melbourne, Australia for the Junior Masters Finals with her performance on her performance in Indonesia. Only the best 8 players from Asia were invited for Australia and her trip was sponsored by the Australian Open Tourney.

It has been a wonderful turn of fortune for Sherene on tournaments at home and abroad and she participated in eleven international tourneys - Pakistan, Indonesia, India, Syria, Jordan, Bangladesh, Bahrain and Australia. Sherene won an ATF Tournament and was runner-up on two occasions and had a good overall placing in the other tournaments.

She also won the Sri Lanka Junior Nationals under-14 singles and doubles and was successful at the 92nd Colombo Championships in 2007.

It has been a success story for Sherene ever since her first International Tournament in 2005 - the MPPJ/Milo Junior Tennis Open Championship in Malaysia and she was runner-up and this spurred her to greater glory in the tournaments that followed.

Sherene started her tennis career at the age of 7 years playing mini tennis where she became the champion at it. She became the Sri Lanka girls under-12 rank No. 1 in the year 2005 winning many tournaments.

She was awarded the S. Gunaratne Challenge Trophy for girls under-12 in 2005 at the Otter Aquatic Club Open Tennis Tournament and went on the to Sri Lanka girls under-14 rank No. 1 in the year 2006 winning the Sri Lanka girls under-14 nationals both singles and doubles and many more tournaments to her credit and was awarded the challenge trophy for girls 14 in the year 2006 at the women’s international tennis tournament. Sherene represented the Sri Lanka Junior Fed Cup Team in 2008.