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| June 9, 2005 | Thursday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 1, 1426 |
Indian outfit to play in Lahore
LAHORE, June 8: A 25-member squad of the Indian Punjab Full Tennis Academy based in Chandigarh will arrive here on Saturday to play against Punjab Tennis Academy (PTA) at Bagh-i-Jinnah from June 12. PTA president Rashid Malik told a press conference on Wednesday that squad would include boys and girls of Under-12, 14, 16 and 18 age categories and five veteran players who were former Davis Cup players.
He said that the tour was being held on reciprocal basis as his academy had already visited Chandigarh early this year.
The official said PTA had a number of talented players including Tanvir Ashiq, Omer Babar, Munir Ashiq who were expected to give the visitors a tough time and added from veterans Muhammad Jamil, Hameed-ul-Haq and Mushaf had been invited to play against the Indian veterans.
Rashid, also the non-playing captain of the Pakistan team which won three gold medals in the first Islamic Games held in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, said visitors would play exhibition matches on first three days, before featuring in a four-day tournament to be played on round-robin basis.
He said Delhi and Baroda academies were also interested to visit and the talks were under way.
Rao Iftikhar, senior vice-president of the Punjab Lawn Tennis Association (PLTA), said the association would send a five-member team to India to play in the tournaments being held there in July and August.
He said PLTA would bear all the expenditures of the players, who would be selected for the tour through trials and added PLTA would shortly announce another academy in Faisalabad.
The PLTA official said another academy would also be established in Islamabad for which the last date for the trainees of submitting their names was June 15.
Rashid would supervise the academy in Islamabad.
He dispelled the impression the academy in Lahore was set up only to earn money. “There were two kinds of the students getting training. Some of them come for training and the others get training from Rashid. Those who come for training pay Rs200 per month, while others give extra charges.”
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