Little Queen reigns like a King

by S.M. Jiffrey Abdeen

Nineteen year old Visakha Vidyalaya schoolgirl Thilini Hendahewa retained the National women's singles badminton title for another year, winning it for the third time in her illustrious shuttling career as the Little Queen at the 63rd National Badminton Championship organised by the Sri Lanka Badminton Association and concluded at the Indoor Stadium, Anuradhapura on Tuesday.

The teenaged champion is certainly a star in the making and is likely to emulate the feats of Thilini Jayasinghe, who has now retired from the game, and Chandrika de Silva who is still around and both champions of the past.

In the final Thilini Hendahewa scored a comfortable 2-0 win over Kavindi Ishadika winning 21/12 and 21/13 which underlined the fact that she smashed her opponent half-way through.

Hendahewa has been a good fighter and never allowed herself to be overawed by any situation or the reputation of her opponents. Her performance this year was great as she had little practice and competed only in a couple of competitions as she sat for her GCE Advanced Level Examination last month and was engrossed in her studies.

She displayed excellent court craft in the Nationals and placed her shots judging the opponent to look for better strategies. Her fitness fitted her aggression in the shots which often turned out to be lethal.

In the semi finals she met a tough opponent in Achini Ratnasiri of McLarens Holdings and had to pull out every trick from her bag to secure the berth into the final. She won 2-1 with the scores standing at 21-18, 9/21 and 22/20. The scores reflected the good fight put up by the former champion Achini.

In the quarter final she beat Ishadi Palihena 2-0. The scores being 20/12 and 20/11.

Hendahewa went into the Nationals ranked number two as a result of missing many competitions due to studies. She won the Singles title at the championship conducted by the Sinhalese Sports Club and another by the National Savings Bank.

Her first National title win was in 2012 by defeating Lekha Shehani who turned the tables the next year by regaining the title.

But the teenager fought back to win the National Singles title at Nawalapitiya in 2014 and her opponent in the final this time was Achini Ratnasiri who was the top favourite.

This year too she beat Achini Ratnasiri in the semi finals which made her task a little easier in the final which she won with ease.