Dineshkanthan extends his territory

Thangarajah Dineshkanthan extended his reign over Sri Lankan men’s tennis by adding the jewel of the SSC Open ‘A’ Grade Championships to his crown, with a 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 demolition of Tanveer Ashiq in the men’s open final, played on the club’s clay courts yesterday.

Ashiq was simply unable to match the superior power, speed and intelligent play of Dineshkanthan, who at no point looked in danger of losing the match. The national champion put Ashiq’s serve under the pressure early, with some ferocious hitting, and claimed the break with a rasping passing shot which left Ashiq helpless at the net.

After holding his own serve to go 42 up, he continued to crush Ashiq with thundering ground strokes and quickly conquered the first set by charging to the net and forcing Ashiq to send an errant backhand long.

Dineshkanthan opened the second set with a spectacular series of strokes, which sliced through Ashiq’s service game like a hot knife through butter, giving him an early break.

However, Ashiq fought back at 2-1, to bring things level with a break of his own. The recovery though, was to be short-lived, as Dineshkanthan immediately broke back and consolidated to rush to a 4-2 advantage.

The set was rapidly running away from Ashiq when he manufactured a majestically-measured drop shot to take the next game. But this proved to be little more than a minor hurdle in Dineshkanthan’s powerful dash to the second set finish line, which he crossed with yet another strong service game. The third set went much the same way as the first and second, with Dineshkanthan dictating play from the back of the court and forcing Ashiq into a string of unforced errors. After securing yet another break, the writing seemed to be on the wall. What remained was the punctuation; a simple full stop or a powerful exclamation mark?

Dineshkanthan answered

this question while up 5-3, facing Ashiq’s serve. After sending Ashiq scampering to all corners of the court with a number of well-place returns, Dineshkanthan, on match point, once again walloped the ball back at Ashiq, and watched as his opponent slapped the ball weakly into the net and handed him an emphatic victory.

In the women’s open final, Amritha Muttiah offered too much of a mountain for Nethmi Waduge to scale, as she rolled to a comprehensive 6-4, 6-2 win. Waduge, for her credit fought determinedly against what proved, on the day to be a far superior opponent, and pulled several games back in the first set after struggling to get a single game under her belt.

However, in the second set the sustained pressure proved too much and she promptly surrendered the set 6-2.

The tournament will be continued today.