Royal College retained the E. F. C. Pereira Challenge Trophy for the third successive year when they beat traditional rivals S. Thomas’ College 3-2 in their annual Under-19 tennis encounter played at Mount Lavinia.
However, it was the Thomians who showed promise and took the lead when Jaitra de Saram defeated Talal Sabry 9-6 to win the opening Singles tie.
But Royal soon came back and levelled the scores when their doubles combination of Heshika Perera and Methvan Wijemanne had the better of Navindu Herarh and Reshana Dwight 9-1.
The defending champions then consolidated their position and went on to build up a 2-1 advantage as their second doubles pair of Nethwin Dharmaratne and Nitila Goonethilleke edged out Janva De Saram and Venuka Kithnula 9-5 in a thriller.
The Thomians kept their hopes alive to a certain extent as the more experienced Zahid Zihar defeated Royal Skipper Ramith Herath 9-7 in the second Singles encounter.
But Thilina Dissanayake sealed the contest in favour of Royal when he defeated Lisal Goonethilleke 9-8 following an exciting tiebreaker in the third and deciding Singles game.
Royal also went on to make a clean sweep as they won the Under-13 and the Under-15 matches convincingly.