LAHORE, Feb 17: Rashid Malik, former Pakistan tennis coach, has suggested it would be better to retain the players who helped beat New Zealand 3-2 as the time was not right to hold trials for the selection of the team for the Davis Cup tie against Thailand.

The tie is scheduled to be held at Lahore from March 4 to 6 and the trials to select the team could not be held due to intermittent rain for the last two weeks. The Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) had attempted twice to start the three-day trials but every time the rains intervened.

The federation had now decided to hold the trials from Friday but there was again rain on Thursday evening. "To me the time is running out and the PTF has to submit the final team 10 days before the start of the tie and it is not appropriate to hold trials," Rashid told Dawn, under whose coaching Pakistan won a record six Davis Cup ties in last two years. Rashid was appointed as coach for this tie but he withdrew after a tragedy in the family.

"If we retained the same winning combination the boys will have time to concentrate for the tie. The selected team should have more time on hard courts if the wet grass is hindering the practice," Rashid said.

He supported the PTF decision of holding the tie on grass courts instead of clay, saying "our top players Aisamul Haq Qureshi and Aqeel Khan are better on grass. He said that Thailand had 60-40 chance to win as they had a well balanced side in presence of world-ranked Paradorn Srichaphan and Dani Udamchoke.

However, he added, the doubles could play a vital role in the outcome of final result. "If we hold Thailand 1-1 on the first day and won the doubles the next day the hosts will have upper hand (2-1) before competing in reverse singles on the third day and I see chances of Pakistan victory," he said.

Rashid believed that Aisam had the potential to beat Udamchoke in the first singles and Aqeel to Srichaphan in the second due to grass courts advantage and added the upsets were much familiar in the game and even top seeded players could lose on any given day.

He said that Pakistan would have an edge in the doubles and advised coach Mohammad Khalid, who replaced him, to do more work on fitness and stamina of players. Besides Aisam and Aqeel, Asim Shafik and Nomi Qamar were the members of the Pakistan's winning team against New Zealand.

Aisam and Aqeel had been selected in the team because of their ranking while two other players are to be picked from four probables Asim, Nomi, Shahzad Khan and Jalil Khan.