400 players at National Junior Squash Championship
A strong set of 400 junior squash players will fight for a place in the national squash honours at the Air Fo r c e Squash Courts Complex Ratmalana, commenced yesterday and the curtain to come down on October 16 with the prize distribution.
The tournament is organised by Sri Lanka Squash to coincide with World Squash day on October 12 and the tournament kick off been scheduled with a series of events. The event will begin with a series of exhibition matches in a fun filled format by the National team players together with the youngsters to celebrate the World Squash Day.
Nilupul de Silva, General Manager Marketing, CBL Foods International ( Pvt) Ltd commenting: "As part of our commitment to support the growth of sports amongst the younger population we have supported squash with the intention of encouraging the players who are committed to the sport and also importantly of making the sport more popular islandwide."
Dhammika Wijesundara, of Sri Lanka Squash said: "We are thankful to Ristzbury for having faith in Sri Lanka Squash and supporting the youngsters with their firm commitment , which is a great encoura gement for us. Ritzbury has always supported junior squash. The younger players look forward to this national event and we are happy to see such a number of record entries."
Commenting further Dhammika said: "We have invested in building the game infrastructure in the last one year with the cooperation of International consultants. Th i s I n cludes Leve l 2 Certification for coaches by World Squash Federation ( WSF) Coaching Director Major Maniam which was a tremendous success. Referee Clinics too was conducted by famous international referee Rod Simington to update the knowledge of local referees just a few months ago."
The i mprovement of Squash was shown with youngsters performing well in Thailand in January this year in the Junior team event and also number of Junior players across all age groups reaching top 16 at the Asian Individual Championships held in Macau, China in June. Sri Lanka can also be proud that an international success with a Sri Lanka Junior player winning the Japanese Junior open in Under- 9 category in August in the individual event.
This time the Junior National tournament will feature girls and boys Under9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19. Novices events for Under- 11 and 15 which will encourage newer entrants. The tournament will conclude on October 16 with the finals of the Girls’ and Boy’s Under- 19 matches scheduled at 5.00pm followed by the awards ceremony for all age categories.
The highly anticipated calendar event for the juniors is sponsored for the 12th year by R i t z bury wh o h a s immensely contributed to the game development and has come forward to support this year’s tournament showing the corporate commitment towards development of the sport.