ISLAMABAD, July 10: The International Satellite Circuit tennis championship, to be held in four phases in three cities, will resume in Pakistan next month, after a decade-long gap.

The four legs of the championship are expected to draw many upcoming foreign players and will carry a total prize money of US$25,000.

The first leg will be staged here on Aug 6-15, to be followed by two legs in Lahore and the last (Masters) in Karachi.

Pakistan had last held Satellite Circuit in 1995.

The qualifiers of the first leg, to be held here at clay courts, will take place on Aug 6-7 while the main singles draw of 32, plus draw of 16 for doubles, will be played on Aug 9-15.

The main singles draw will consist of 20 automatic entrants due to their rankings, four wild-card entries and eight qualifiers.Entries for the first leg will be received at ITF office in London via Internet till July 26.

Each of the four legs will yield US$6,250 in prize money (altogether $ 25,000). There will also be four wild-cards in the main round and six wild-cards in qualifiers of each leg.

The legs in Lahore will be played on grass and the one in Karachi probably on hard court.

Such satellite circuits are held by International Tennis Federation in various regions of the world to enable players to improve their international rankings.

Pakistan's three players-Aqeel Khan, Jalil Khan and Shehzad Khan-recently played in international satellite circuit in India. The country's top-notch Aqeel made it to the semis of two legs and final of Masters in New Delhi.

"We hope these three players, especially Aqeel, may have garnered enough ranking points to get automatically in main draw or secure wild-cards for the upcoming satellite circuit", said Secretary of Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF), Maj. (r) Raashid.

He said PTF president Dilawar Abbas had paid compliments to Aqeel for his splendid performance in Indian Satellite Circuit."PTF will again sponsor Aqeel to figure in another Indian Satellite later this year", Raashid said.

Also present at the briefing, alongside Raashid, were PTF treasurer, Muhammad Arif Qureshi, and tournament director, Dr. Jawad Chishtie, who also represents a non-profit organisation Subh-e-Nau, which is sponsoring four tennis events in this country in the next three months, including the Satellite Circuit.

The non-profit organisation will also organize junior training camp, to be attended by three players from each of the four provinces plus from the capital, from July 23 to Aug.

It will also arrange a course, to be conducted by ITF experts, for tennis umpires here from Aug 2 to 5 and ITF International Junior Tennis Championship in Karachi Oct 4-10.-APP