Bartleet Finance to sponsor the Junior Tennis Initiative Programme

Thursday, 20 January 2011 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Bartleet Finance, with their rich corporate culture of CSR initiatives, has volunteered to sponsor the Junior Tennis Initiative programme for this year.

Speaking to the press S Raghavan, Director BFS said “we need to regionally integrate with the community, thus giving exposure to the respective branch personnel to be involved in CSR in their respective areas. We also consider it our duty to help underprivileged kids, keeping in mind that someday these kids would grow up to be talented tennis players and also skilled entrepreneurs”.

The Junior Tennis Initiative (JTI) Programme was introduced to Sri Lanka by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) in 1998 and it has produced a number of talented players in the country. The programme was introduced under two sections: the first being known as Mini Tennis - now known as the Tennis 10’s. This is a new concept of the ITF and is an easy way to teach tennis to children with modified equipment. The second section is known as Performance Tennis which is a follow up programme of the Tennis 10’s. The players will be trained on a regular basis and they will play in more tournaments.

In the past 12 years, a large number of children throughout the island had the opportunity of participating in these programmes. The Sri Lanka Tennis Association in its keenness to get talented players was able to identify a large number who would be able to represent Sri Lanka in International Tournaments. The following are a selected few; Dinesh Kanthan Thangaraja, Tharaka Sandaruwan, Nishanthan Nadarajah, Amritha Muttiah, Thisuri Molligoda and Kavindya de Silva. The Junior Tennis Initiative is being facilitated by regional coordinators who are appointed by the SLTA and the SLTA National Coordinator, who monitors the entire programme. Several schools in different regions have implemented regular tennis through the JTI programme and it is being implemented in over 10 regions.

Bartleet Finance is confidant of its contribution reaching higher levels in the tennis courts as well as developing the abilities of the young generations.