The Clay Court Tennis Nationals 2020 suffered a major blow when the defending champion Sharmal Dissanayake pulled out from the competition, due to an injury at the SLTA Courts in Green Path, Colombo yesterday.
The top seed and the hot favourite was set to meet the unseeded Savit Weerasinghe in the Men’s Singles second-round fixture after having received a bye in the first-round.
However, Dissanayake was unable to commence his match at the scheduled time having suffered a back injury and eventually was forced to concede a walk over to his opponent.
Dissanayake’s withdrawal at the last moment means this event, which is considered as one of the highest rated tournaments in the SLTA calendar, would no doubt lose a great amount of gloss and now the focus would be on the other seeded players.
Meanwhile, unseeded Rukmal Cooray created a major upset when he toppled the 10th seed Dhilvan Herath in straight sets 6-3, 6-3 to reach the pre quarter-finals of the Men’s Singles event.
In addition, third seed Sankha Atukorale also joined the pre quarter-final line-up when he defeated the unseeded Zaidh Zihar in straight sets 6-4, 6-3.
The fourth seed Dumindu Dilum also had an easy passage into the pre quarter-finals when he outplayed the unseeded Niroshan de Silva in straight sets 6-2, 6-1.
