Sri Lanka’s leading tennis player Harshana Godamanna will play a key role when they participate in the Davis Cup Asia/Oceania group III tennis tie by PNB Paribas at the OCBC arena in Singapore from June 26 to 29.
Godamanna has been in the forefront of Sri Lanka’s Davis Cup ties for the past 17 years that enabled the country to be promoted or stay in group II many times. He will be joined by Dineshkanthan Thangarajah as the next best for Sri Lanka. The other members of the team are Dumindu Dilum and Savith Weerasinghe who are virtually new faces. Thangarajah who was Sri Lanka’s national champion for four years and number one player had not participated in local tournaments for some time and makes a comeback after a brief retirement from competitive tennis. However, he has been actively involved in coaching.
Two other key players who will miss the tie are men’s national champion and number one ranked player Sharmal Dissanayake and Yasith de Silva who have opted out due to school examinations.
The non-playing captain is former Sri Lanka Davis Cup doubles player Rajeev Rajapakse who will be appearing with the team for the first time after his retirement. The other countries that will be in action in this tie are Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, Qatar, Syria, Vietnam and Singapore. Sri Lanka was relegated to group III last year.
Godamanna is back from the United States of America for this tie taking time off studies and coaching. In all previous Davis Cup ties Godamanna has won almost all his matches against some strong opponents and took Sri Lanka to higher levels.
The only lapse has been in the other player who could not match the standard of Godamanna.
It will be a big loss for Sri Lanka without their next best player in Sharmal Dissanayake who has to give preference to examinations in his endeavour to pursue his professional career.
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