Hong Kong tennis’ Sri Lanka-born, guitar-playing, law student Adithya Karunaratne is hoping to reign in Spain
- The 19-year-old is hoping to make it big in tennis, moving to Spain six years ago to play on Europe’s competitive ITF circuit
- Former Renaissance College student says Hong Kong is her home and she hopes to represent the city in all the major team competitions
Adithya Karunaratne has a couple of life options. She could follow a career in classical guitar or consider a future in law after she was recently accepted by a top university in London. For now, though, the 19-year-old is focused on one thing – rising up the tennis rankings and representing Hong Kong at major team events.
Karunaratne, who was born in Sri Lanka and moved to Hong Kong when she was five, is plying the arduous and competitive ITF circuit in Europe as she tries to fulfil her sporting ambition of one day mixing it up with the best players in the world. The Hong Kong Sports Institute scholarship athlete moved to Spain in 2015 in a bid to expand her tennis with more coaching and more tournaments.
“The thing is in Hong Kong, we didn’t really see a strong culture for sports, it was very oriented towards academics and there was no real tournament circuit,” said Karunaratne, whose father, a retired financial consultant, is with her in their Barcelona base.
“When you think of Spain, you automatically think of sports and all the facilities they have. It’s in Europe, it’s super easy to travel around to all these countries and you have so many opportunities for tournaments. So it just felt like a great centre for any sports person.”
The family first travelled to Spain in 2014 to explore the possibility of using the country as a base. They were impressed by the sporting culture in Spain and the coaching talent in a country that has produced the likes of Rafael Nadal, Garbine Muguruza and other greats.
Karunaratne joined a small academy in Barcelona run by coaches Joan Balcells and David Ollés. Balcells reached a career high of 57 on the ATP Tour in May, 2001, winning one tournament and helping Spain to Davis Cup glory in 2000. He can boast victories over Roger Federer and Nadal early in their careers as well as two wins over Marat Safin when the Russian was a top-10 player.
“They are both great coaches and I travel a lot with both of them,” said Karunaratne, who attended Renaissance College in New Territories during her time in Hong Kong. “It’s not a big academy, it’s a little group of players so we get a lot of individual attention.”