03 January 2004	Saturday	10 Ziqa'ad 1424

LAHORE, Jan 2: Pakistan tennis coach, Rashid Malik says that Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) is not preparing seriously for the forthcoming Davis Cup Asia Oceania Zone Group-I tie against Thailand to be held at Bangkok from Feb 6 to 8.

"A six-week training camp plus one or two international tournaments are a must to prepare the team for the tie but PTF has still not finalized a date to start the camp," remarked Rashid while talking to Dawn on Friday.

PTF has tentatively planned to start the camp at Karachi from Jan 10. Rashid, under whose coaching Pakistan beat South Korea (3-2), and retained its place in Group 1 at Lahore earlier this year, said that it seemed PTF was not mentally prepared to win this tie, considering Thailand a strong team.

"Of course, they are specialists of playing at hard courts, but I claim if their top seed Paradon Srichapan does not play then Pakistan will be in a position to upset them," he said. Rashid led Pakistan to win four other Davis Cup ties besides Syria (5-0), Malaysia (4-1), Taiwan (4-1) and China (3-2).

"All our top ranking players, except Aisam-ul-Haq, need international exposure and PTF should arrange at least an ITF tournament whether in Thailand or Dubai...," he said.

Rashid was reluctant to answer when asked if he would continue as non playing captain for the said tie. "Yeah, I have been offered by PTF to lead the team in Thailand, but I still haven't decided whether to accept the offer or not for certain reasons," he said.

Rashid is the only Pakistani coach to have passed the ITF Level-1 and Level-2 coaching course. He said that Punjab Lawn Tennis Association (PLTA), which plans to launch an academy from Jan 6, has offered him to run it, so he will take a final decision about both the offers in a week.

Rashid admitted that the tie against Thailand would prove tough but if Pakistan won, it would face rather easy rivals Taiwan or Uzbekistan in the next round, therefore "we should fully concentrate on it".

Taiwan and Uzbekistan are to play each other and the winner will meet Pakistan in the next round. If Taiwan won, Pakistan would have to go there, otherwise it would host Uzbekistan.