Sri Lanka’s Taavi Samaraweera has won both the Under-11 and Under-13 boys’ singles titles at the WTT Youth Contender Montenegro 2026, becoming the first Sri Lankan table tennis player to take two golds at a single Youth Contender tournament.
The event was held in Podgorica from 3 to 6 November, NewsFirst reported.
How he won the Under-11 title
Samaraweera beat Kazakhstan’s top-ranked player 3–0 in the quarter-finals, then a leading Indian opponent 3–0 in the semi-finals, and took the final against Singapore’s representative 3–0 — winning the title without dropping a game in any of the three rounds reported.
How he won the Under-13 title
The second title came against players up to two years older.
- Round of 16: beat a Singaporean opponent 3–0
- Quarter-finals: beat Kazakhstan’s top player 3–1
- Semi-finals: beat Slovakia’s representative 3–0
- Final: beat Montenegro’s leading player — a former Under-13 World Youth Contender champion — 3–1
Where this sits in his year
The double gold follows his wins in Italy and Slovakia. This desk recorded the Lignano, Italy Under-11 title on 25 October as his fifth World Youth Ranking gold of 2026, and his Under-11 gold at Senec, Slovakia a week later.
The Under-13 result is the significant one. Samaraweera has previously reached the top of the world Under-11 rankings, and at an earlier Youth Contender in Pristina, Kosovo he became the first Sri Lankan to reach finals in both age groups — taking gold in the Under-11 and silver in the Under-13. Converting that silver into gold is what makes this tournament a first.
The photograph accompanying the NewsFirst report shows him before a WTT Youth Series backdrop carrying the Montenegrin Olympic Committee emblem and the Montenegro coat of arms, confirming the venue.
Not reported
NewsFirst does not name any of his opponents, give the Montenegrin finalist’s identity, or report the dates on which each final was played. No comment from Samaraweera, his coach or Sri Lanka Table Tennis is included, and the filing does not say what effect the results will have on his world rankings in either age group. No other Sri Lankan newsroom had carried the result at the time of writing.
