Tennis junior primed

By JAMIE HARO
PAPUA New Guinea’s tennis prospect Gracen Kubheran Mayooran is looking forward to more International Tennis Federation (ITF)-sanctioned junior tournaments after a successful meet in Port Moresby over the weekend.
The 13-year-old from Sri Lanka has ties to PNG through his East Sepik mum and made his first appearance in the 2024 Junior Tennis Open (JTO) Championship.
Mayooran unseated last year’s champion and claimed the boys Under-14 and U16 titles and a U16-U18 mixed doubles title with teammate Sugar-Ray Hakena on Monday.
“I picked up the racquet and started playing in 2017 until Covid-19 came but after that I started to become great in the sport and have been competing ever since,” Mayooran said.
“This was my first time coming to PNG and competing here; it was great coming here to meet my mum’s relatives who are here in the county and in Port Moresby.”
Mayooran said it was a different experience competing in PNG and on a different type of tennis court.
“I’ve never played on synthetic courts before, its only clay and hard courts back home in Sri Lanka but a great experience to test a different court and I’ve learnt a lot,” he said.
“Competition wise I’ve competed in ITF and Asia Tennis Federation (ATF)-sanctioned competitions apart from other tournaments so it isn’t my first time competing against others.
“For this JTO, I had the privilege to compete against other juniors in the boys U14 and U16 division, great matches and I know they have a great future to play more tennis but the fun part was making new friends during the competition.”
Meanwhile Mayooran, who has competed in other big tournaments including ITF U12 team competitions for South East-Asia Regionals, ATF U14 Series in Colombo and other tournament(s), said his next focus was the Sri Lanka Nationals when he returns home.
“So we have Sri Lanka Nationals coming up, that’s one other big tournament I am really looking forward to when I return home,” he added.