Sri Lanka confident ahead of crunch Davis Cup clash

Lebanon Team from left Hady Habib, Jad Ballout, Lebanon’s non-playing captain Hussein Baddreddine, Giovani Samaha and Abou Chahine

Sri Lankan Team from left Sankha Athukorale, Thangarajah Dineshkanthan, Sharmal Dissanayake, Harshana Godamanne and Sri Lanka’s non-playing captain Rohan De Silva

By Madushka Balasuriya 

The Sri Lankan Davis Cup team were in a confident mood ahead of their must-win Asia/Oceania Zone Group Two tie against Lebanon, due to be held from 17-19 July.

“We’re feeling pretty confident. We’ve been training for the last 2-3 weeks, and before that we had a couple of tournaments here,” said Rohan De Silva, Sri Lanka’s non-playing captain, at a pre-match media briefing held at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA) in Colombo yesterday. The rest of the team includes Harshana Godamanne, Thangarajah Dineshkanthan, Sharmal Dissanayake and Sankha Athukorale.

Sri Lanka and Lebanon, who come into this tie on the back of losses to the Philippines and Chinese Taipei respectively, are playing to keep their place in Group Two in 2016 with the loser dropping down to Group Three. The sides are familiar foes having faced each other several times in recent years, with Sri Lanka winning their last four encounters, but this Lebanon side is one of the youngest ever fielded in Davis Cup history and Sri Lanka go into the tie not knowing too much about their opponents.

“It’s hard because we only get to see them practice a little bit, but it’s all about getting on court and seeing how they play. And then as we go on, we have our captain by our side and we can analyse things. That’s the good thing about the Davis Cup, you have your captain sitting on court and you can always communicate with him,” explained Godamanne, the country’s No.1 player.

The youthfulness of the Lebanon team was also a factor highlighted by Lebanon’s non-playing captain, Hussein Baddreddine, as he played down their recent poor record against the home side. “The whole team is a new team with three players under the age of 20. Most of them will have a great future in three or four years. Besides in the last four defeats, only one was crucial, when we lost 3-2 in Lebanon,” said Baddreddine, speaking at the media briefing flanked by the rest of his team, which comprises Giovani Samaha, Hady Habib, Jad Ballout and Ibrahim Abou Chahine.

Meanwhile, in a news release, SLTA President Iqbal Bin Issack also called on “all the local tennis enthusiasts to come and cheer the Sri Lankan team on to victory.”

Five matches (four singles and a doubles) will be played over the course of this week, with the singles matches being played on Friday and Sunday, and the doubles being held on Saturday. All matches will be best of five tiebreak sets.