LAHORE, Oct 28: Second seeded Asim Shafik clinched the men’s singles title defeating the defending champion and top seed Aqeel Khan 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (9/7) while Mehvish Chishti grabbed the ladies single trophy by overpowering top seed Mariam Rahim 6-7, 7-4, 6-1 in the 38th National Grass Court Tennis Championship at the Bagh-i-Jinnah on Sunday.

Asim Shafik, playing a consistent game, outwitted Aqeel Khan. Asim excelled in good returns and fine serves. Aqeel displayed aggressive game and virtually outplayed. Asim in the first set, but he could not maintain tempo of his game.

Aqeel looked jaded and uncomfortable as his left leg developed cramps.

On the other hand, Asim winner of the recently concluded Federal Cup in Islamabad, emerged as a deserving winner, Aqeel turned erratic and committed 14 double faults as against two by Asim.

During the first set, Aqeel broke Asim serves in his first, second and fifth games to easily win 6-2.

Asim played better game in the second and third sets. During the second set, Asim broke Aqeel’s serve in his first game. Asim held his serve to win the second set 6-3.

In the third set, Asim dominated the proceedings. He broke Aqeel serves in his first, second and third games. Earlier, Aqeel had broken Asim’s serve in his first game. Asim won the third set 6-4.

The fourth set was evenly fought. Both held their serves till it was 6-6 and tie breaker followed Aqeel took a 2-0 lead but Asim levelled at 2-2 and later it was at 5-5 and 6-6. Aqeel’s lob landed outside the court and the score was again level 7-7. A backhand hit saw Asim take 8-7 lead and he finished the tie-break with a superb cross-court backhand return which left Aqeel bewildered.

Kamran Niaz, level 1 referee, supervised the final.

The ladies’ singles final was the ‘best-of-three’ affair. On Saturday afternoon, Mariam. Had taken lead by winning the first set 7-6 but Mehvish Chishti had levelled the score (1-1) by winning the second set 6-4. Not only that, Mehvish was leading 2-0 when bad light stopped play.

On Sunday, Mehvish relied mostly on her punishing forehand strokes and neutralised Mariam slicing backhand shots. Mariam took the games to deuce on several occasions in the third set but Mehvish always saved break-points. Finally, Mehvish won the decisive set 6-1 to emerge as a new champion.

Relying on angled serves and overhead smashes, Iftikhar Ahmad Rao and ‘Zahid Zafar beat Fayyaz Chaudhary and Pervaiz Toor 6-3, 6-3 to claim the Veterans’ doubles (45 years and above) title.

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