Astoria Women's Futures Tennis Tournaments set off

Sri Lanka Tennis Association ( SLTA) will refocus on the development of the women's professional circuit, with the commencement of the three- week long Astoria Women's Futures Tournaments, which will officially begin from tomorrow. The three back- to- back tournaments will be played on the clay courts of SLTA in Greenpath until October 21.

The tournament, however, got underway yesterday, providing the opportunity to unseeded players a duration of two days to qualify for the main draw of the Astoria Women's Futures Week 1. The tournament will be open for six players with a career world ranking higher than 700 and another three ranked in the 800s from a country. Already players from Cambodia, India, France, Serbia, Sweden, United States of America, Hungary, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Australia, China, Canada and a host of other countries have applied to take part.

According to Dinith Pathirana, the Tournament Director, the tournament has obtained the endorsement of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and US$ 15000 will be on offer weekly for the three tournaments. Sri Lanka and China have received wildcard entries into the main draw of the three instalments of the competition. From Sri Lanka Nethmi Waduge, Anika Seneviratne and a third player will be included to play in the main draw, according to SLTA officials.

The ITF has already given a grant to cover part of the tournament expenses from the Grand Slam Development Fund (GSDF) while the local partners and sponsors are expected to cover the rest of the expenses of the tournaments. The total cost of each tournament is expected to be around Rs 3.5 million as stated by Pathiraja.

This tournament is also expected to benefit the Sri Lanka team when they participate in the Fed Cup by BNP Paribas Asia/Oceania Zone matches in the future.

AVIC International Hotels Lanka is the main sponsors of the tournaments and the contract for the sponsorship for these tournaments was signed between Zhang Bo, its Project Director and the SLTA, represented by President, Iqbal Bin Issack at a press conference held on Friday at Greenpath. Dharaka Ellawala of Sri Lanka is the Referee while the umpires will be the local white badge umpires, Dinusha Wijesuriya, Prasad Jaya l a t h a r a chchi, Ava n t h a Suranimala, Muffadel Hazari and Anjana de Silva.