February 22, 2008	Friday	Safar 14, 1429

KARACHI, Feb 21: Davis Cupper Aqeel Khan will fly to Delhi on Saturday to compete in three ITF Futures tournaments besides undergoing fortnight training at Ludhiana’s Harvest Tennis Academy.

“The visit is aimed at attaining the top level fitness and strenuous match practice for the coming Davis Cup ties in Iran,” he told Dawn on Thursday.

After his exposure at Delhi, he will travel to Ludhiana for two-week training before returning to Mumbai for the next assignment. He will round-off his trip by featuring in the third leg of ITF Futures event at Gourgon. He returns home in the last week of March.

His trip has been financed by the Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF).

Pakistan was relegated to group III in the Asia Oceania zone Davis Cup following dismal showing last year.

Pakistan are now drawn alongside Iran, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tajikistan, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam in the April 9 to 13 event being played at Tehran.

According to format, eight teams will be divided into two equal pools. The top two nations from each pool advance to a further round-robin pool of four, from which the teams finishing first and second will be promoted to Asia/Oceania Group II in 2009.

The bottom two nations in each pool also advance to a further round-robin pool of four, from which the teams finishing third and fourth are relegated to Asia/Oceania Zone Group IV in 2009.