Royal-Thomian annual tennis encounter on Saturday

The Annual Royal-Thomian Tennis Encounter for the E. F. C. Pereira Challenge Trophy will be played on 6 October at the S.Thomas’ College tennis courts starting at 9a.m. This is an eagerly awaited event by the two schools.

The Trophy donated by D.L. Seneviratne (Old Royalist and former President of the SLTA) is in memory of E.F.C. Pereira who was a teacher at Royal College for 20 years and thereafter a teacher at S.Thomas’ College for a further 18 years. He was in fact, the teacher who was in charge of tennis, at both schools.

This is the eighth encounter in the series .The winner of the Under 19 Tie will be awarded the Trophy. There will also be the Under 15 and Under 13 age group Ties as well. Each Tie consists of three singles and two doubles matches. As the teams are evenly matched the matches are expected to be highly competitive and exciting.

The Royal College team is captained by Junior National Champion and Davis Cup poolist Sharmal Dissanayake and the key experienced players are Avinda Ekanayake and Junior Davis Cup player Dhanushka Abeywardene.

The S. Thomas’ College team is led by Sachin Karunanayake and includes the nationally ranked players Avishka Perera and Venuka Hulangamuwa with experienced players such as Hemal Wickramasinghe, Naveen Gunawardane and Jonathan Edward adding experience to the line up. The Thomian juniors also have nationally ranked players Jerique Rajapaksha, Akshath Perera and Avindra Perera.  

S. Thomas’ College Under 19 team: Sachin Karunanayake (Captain), Naveen   Goonewardane, Hemal Wickramasinghe , Jonathan Edward, Avishka Perera, Venuka Hulangamuwa, Amira Muthugala, Senal Munasinghe, Andrew Balasinghe and  Kershaw Kanagasundaran.

Royal College Under 19 Team: Sharmal Dissanayake (Captain),

Avinda Ekanayake,Umesh Sooriyabandara,Udishtan Raviraj,Dhanushka Abeyawardene, Dasun Fonseka,Senith Abeyanayake,Nipuna Ambanpola, Athas Faleel and Druuvi De Silva.

Anjuna Anthony is the coach of the S. Thomas’ College team and the Royal College team is coached by Sylvester Francis. The Prize distribution is scheduled to be held on the same day. The Chief Guest will be Lalith Senanayake who captained the Royal College Tennis team in1958.