Wishful Vishmi: The fairytale rise of a humble lass

Vishmi Serasinghe (seated third from left) with her team-mates at Goshen College she propelled to a history-making feat

Vishmi Serasinghe

• Vishmi had not even reached the age 10 in her cradle at Ave Maria Convent where she made all the girls who challenged her from rivals schools look ordinary by her standards when she won her first title in both the singles and doubles before the sophisticated Bishop’s College in Colombo grabbed her 

By Callistus Davy

Imagine the scenes, tennis courts in the USA playing host to the off-spring of a Sri Lankan auto-rickshaw driver. Call her story the stuff of fairy godmothers with magic wands touching everything that turns into gold and out comes a Sri Lankan tennis prodigy having a fairytale rise away from home. 
Vishmi Serasinghe was an assuming girl attending a missionary school, Ave Maria Convent in Negombo. But something or someone was out to get her and Vishmi with a tennis racquet in one hand and a dream on the other wanted to strike it big. 
She hit it big and now her university in the USA for the first time in its history entered the Nationals ranked 14th in a country where the sport of tennis is an industry. 
Like it happens most of the time when an underprivileged school goer in Sri Lanka is spotted by a talent hunter and taken away to a big city school, Vishwa caught someone’s eye that led to the American dream.
Vishmi had not even reached the age 10 in her cradle at Ave Maria Convent when she made all the girls who challenged her from rivals schools look ordinary by her standards as she won her first title in both the Singles and Doubles before the sophisticated Bishop’s College in Colombo grabbed her.
It also marked the turning point in her career when the Foundation of Goodness headed by former First Class cricketer and one-time Sri Lanka Cricket secretary Kushil Gunasekera got word of a tennis hopeful. Gunasekera did not need a second look and together with his fellow Trustee Ashan Malalasekera worked out a sponsorship for Vishmi and with that a whole new world unfurled for her. 
“It was about giving an opportunity and harnessing the skills of someone and exposing her to places that can be imagined”, said Gunasekera.
While playing at junior tournaments conducted by the Sri Lanka Tennis Association, Vishmi nudged a former court icon and a most illustrious ex-player Arjun Fernando who was a Selector for the association and had no doubts about her potential.
At the same time a coach from the USA too was on a mission in the island offering a scholarship to a school player and Vishmi now finds herself at the Goshen College in Indiana.
“Vishmi is now exposed in the best place she could ask for playing in the Nationals and who knows she can turn more heads in a country that adores tennis”, said Gunasekera whose Foundation of Goodness ensured nothing would stand in the way of her passage to America.
Could it be that Vishmi would one day have to thank a few good men who took her from crayons to perfume?
Vishmi’s exploits at Goshen College has taken her team to a position where they had not gone before.
Like a heavyweight boxer Vishmi was undefeated each time she stepped onto the court and has been selected to the All-Crossroads League Team this season which according to the Foundation of Goodness is an honour for players who have demonstrated outstanding performance, consistency and competitiveness throughout the entire season.
But Vishmi takes nothing for granted and is enhancing her academic potential to match her tennis exploits. Going by the old adage, practice makes perfect, Vishmi during university breaks does her own training and fitness with or without her team-mates deepening her desire to take her game to another level.
For the record Vishmi has represented Sri Lanka in more than one international junior tournament and if not for the covid-19 pandemic she would have been showcasing herself at the World Junior Team competition for Asia-Oceania in Australia in 2020.
But two years later Vishmi was performing at the World Junior Team competition Asia-Oceania final qualifying round in Indonesia and was a semifinalist at the International Tennis Federation World Junior Tour in Nepal that same year.
Although Vishmi will never forget her past and her childhood days and compared to what she has achieved in America, her local trophies in all age groups that she took home numbering 12 has now become secondary.