Royal Thomian 2011 tennis encounter today

The Annual Royal-Thomian Tennis Encounter for the E.F.C. Pereira Challenge Trophy will be played on 29 October, 2011 at the SLTA Hard Courts at 10.00 a.m.

The Trophy donated by D.L. Seneviratne (Old Royalist and former President of the SLTA) is named in memory of E.F.C. Pereira who was a teacher at Royal College for 20 years and thereafter a teacher at S. Thomas’ College for a further 18 years. He was the teacher in charge of tennis at both schools.

This is the seventh encounter in the series and Royal College has won all six encounters played so far. The winner of the Under 19 Tie will be awarded the Trophy. There will also be an Under 15 and Under 13 age group Ties as well. Each Tie consists of three singles and two Doubles matches.

The Royal College team is captained by Davis Cup Poolist M.A. Shakir and the key players are captain Mohammed Shakir,Emerging talent Shamal Dissanayake,Inzam Irfan and Danushka Abeywardena among the juniors.

The S. Thomas’ College team is led by Jonathan Edward with the junior ranked players in their team includes Avishka Perera,Hemal Wickramasinghe and Venuka Hulangamuwa with the junior teams having Jerique Rajapaksha,Akshath Perera and Avindra Perera.

Royal will be the favourites but S. Thomas’ College are expected to provide stiff opposition as their recent performances in the public schools tennis has been very encouraging.

The Royalists are coached by K. Rajkumar whilst Sylvester Francis is the coach of the S. Thomas’ College team.

The Prize distribution would be at 1.30 p.m. The Chief Guest would be Felix Senanayaka who is a former S. Thomas’ College Tennis Captain.