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The Court of Appeal (CA) has ordered sports authorities to include a 15-year-old tennis player in a doubles event for the upcoming Asian Games after her parents took legal action to overturn her exclusion from the tournament.
Savini Jayasuriya, the country’s number two-ranked tennis player, was directed by the CA to be named for either a women’s or mixed doubles event. While she had initially been included by tennis selectors for participation in the multidisciplinary sporting tournament in Indonesia, the decision was reversed, prompting her parents to petition the CA.
In view of the court order, the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka (NOCSL) has now requested the organisers to accept Savini as a late entry. The Games begin on August 18.
“We have written to the organisers and requested Savini be included in the list,” said NOC chief Suresh Subramanium. “But it’s highly unlikely that they will respond positively as the deadline has already passed. The deadline for final entry was on June 30, 2018.
Subramanium was highly critical of the selection process as he said it was ‘flawed’ from the start.
Savini’s parents went to court after their daughter didn’t make it to the final squad despite an earlier recommendation by selectors that she and Anjalika Kurera be sent as two singles players, and Anika Seneviratne for doubles.
The selection criteria decrees that it is compulsory for all players (except Sharmal Dissannayake, the only player with a world ranking in men’s tennis) to participate in trials. Selectors have also said that if a player gives a walkover for any reason other than an injury, he or she is deemed to have withdrawn from the trial process.
The women’s trials were conducted with just three players due to five others withdrawing for various reasons. Anika, the national top seed, did not show up for the trials, thereby giving walkovers to Savini and Anjalika in the stage three matches that had been scheduled for June 14-15. This begs the question why selectors, against their own specified criteria, included Anika who did not present herself for trials in the doubles event.
The selectors said, therefore, that Anika will not be considered for singles despite being the top-ranked domestic women’s player at the time. “She is the number oneranked player and we expected her to be the number one choice as in the case of the boys’ team,” said Asanga Seneviratne, Anika’s father who is a NOCSL Vice President and also once held the post of Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union President.
But selectors later revised the composition of the women’s team on the intervention of the Sports Minister and National Selection Committee (NSC) after Anika’s parents protested. Mr Seneviratne maintained that his daughter should have been the automatic choice as she was the country’s top-seeded player.
The composition of the women’s team was then changed, with Savini being replaced by Anika for the second singles spot. She was still included as a doubles player. The NOCSL has allocated six slots for tennis, three for each gender.
When the team went for final approval to the NSC, however, it was opted to field only four tennis players on the basis of prospects. This resulted in Savini’s name being dropped. Her father, in a letter to Sports Minister Faiszer Mustapha, called the decision “arbitrary, unjust” and said it deprived his daughter of her rightful place in the Asian Games 2018 women’s tennis team.
The tennis selectors said the composition was changed to give Sri Lanka the best possible chance. “If three girls and three boys were to go, there wouldn’t have been any issue,” said Arjun Fernando, Chairman of the tennis selection committee. “But all this came up when NOCSL cut the numbers.” He admitted that the players now face an uphill task at the Games.
“Yes, Anika is ranked number one,” Fernando said. “But there had been other players with winning records which meant it was not justifiable to enter her directly. However, five of them then withdrew due to various reasons leaving just Anjalika, Anika and Savini.”
“Had we known that only three players would participate in the trials, we would have given an exception to Anika and conducted a trial for the remaining spot between Anjalika and Savini,” he explained.
The Attorney General’s Department intervened in Court, calling on the parties to come to a settlement where both children would go for the Games, avoiding an interim injunction which would have held the whole team back. They consented.
The Sports Minister has now issued a directive for the authorities to follow the CA order and to include Savini in women’s doubles with either Anika or Anjalika.
Anika of Ladies College is a committed force in the local and international tennis arena. She has a career high ITF Junior ranking of 705 and a current combined ranking of 1068. Savini of Bishops College, on the other hand, has a current combined ranking of 1528 and career high of 1374. The 14-yearold Anjalika has a current combined ranking of 2287 points and career combined of 1885.