Former National Table Tennis captain and three times National champion Rohan Sirisena created history when he became the first Sri Lankan paddler to take a silver medal at the recently concluded US open Table Tennis Championship held in Ontario Convention Centre California.
Rohan Sirisena now based in USA as a TT coach had chance to take part in US open over 40 men’s singles and entered the final and won the silver medal after winning four setter game against Guo Hui Lu 11/9, 8/11,4/11,9/11
This was a dream come true for me to take part in US open TT championship which is very high standard tourney in USA . I had to play against three players at qualification Round (04 players each group) I beat Alexander Anuraga – (3-0) 11-05 / 11-06 / 11-05 and beat Arseni Mouchinski – (3-0) 11-07 / 11-04 / 11-07. Then defeated Shyue Ping Ong – (3-0) 11-05 / 11-02 / 11-06 to qualify for main draw as a group champion and it was great achievement in my first US open event.
At the main draw I defeated Ruslan Raibokoniev – (3-0) 11-04 / 11-02 / 11-08 to enter the quarter final .
When I entered the quarters I had to play against Srini Venkataramani and won – (3-2) 06-11 / 11-08 / 08-11 / 11-08 / 11-06 and at the semi final beat Vinay Chandra – (3-1) 11-05 / 11-04 / 10-12 / 11/ 5 to enter the final .During my journey to the final I was able to get exposure at this level said Rohan Sirisena the product of St John’s College Nugegoda.
In addition I am very happy as a coach of Fremont Table Tennis Academy in Northern California in which my three players had good achievement. Rohan Bubna ratings under 2000 won silver medal while Tanishq ratings under 1700 won silver medal and Rayan Chatterjee ratings under 3100 doubles won bronze medal and all three young paddlers were coached by me said Rohan.
I decided to retire from Sri Lanka TT at the age of 39 having played for 25 years to the motherland and all that experience was a boost to continue my sport as a coach and player here in USA said Sirisena. I started my career under coach Sanjeewa Mendis at St John’s College Nugegoda later crossed over to Royal College where I gained more recognition in the game. I had good memories as a Sri Lanka TT captain in 2018 Commonwealth Games as well.as 3 rd Lusofornia Games and took part in world TT championship, Asian Games, Asian Championship and Commonwealth championship and I won four gold medals and a silver while I was playing Asian Junior TT championship.
Dhammika Ratnaweera