March 13, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 4,1429

KARACHI, March 12: Top 32 men and as many women are set to vie for the top honours when the four-day Pakistan Masters Cup table tennis tournament gets into action at the PSB National Coaching Centre from Sunday.

The event marks the commencement of the circuit spread over six Masters Cup during the year.

According to the tentative programme chalked out by the Pakistan Table Tennis Federation (PTTF), the second event is slated at Lahore sometime next month followed by similar tournaments at Quetta, Karachi, Peshawar and Islamabad.

The PTTF has decided to conduct the individual as well as the team events on round-robin league to provide maximum competition opportunity to participants. It concludes on March 19.

“The Masters Cup, which has yielded fruitful results in the past, is being revived after 15 years and will be held under the aegis of the PTTF,” its president S.M. Sibtain said on Wednesday.

Men:

Fakhar Khan (Army); Shahzad Waseem, Yasir Iqbal, Ahmed Hussain, Asim Aziz (Habid Bank); Hassan Haider, Mubashir Ahmed, Awais Ahmed (HEC); Tariq Aziz (Islamabad); Rafiq Sarhadi, Asim Muneer, Shujaat Ali, Farooq Mustafa, Abdul Raheem, Arshad Taskeen (Punjab); Mohsin Raza, Zulfiqar Ahmed, Asif Razzak, Nadir Sohail (PWD); S. Awais Hassan, Salman Virk, Rameez Khan (Railways); Usman Ahmed, Asim Hussain, Naveen Nazar, Asif Aziz (Sindh); Saleem Abbas, Bilal Yaseen, Sajid Hassan, Faryal Minhas, Asim Qureshi, Ali Faisal (Wapda).

Women:

Seemab Alam, Rubab Alam, Yasmeen Haneef, Nasra Hanif (Army); Shabnam Bilal, Ghalia Khurshed, Sadia Yaseen, Ayesha Khan, Shama Hassan (Habib Bank); Shazia Tariq, Ayesha Siddique (Islamabad); Shumaila, Kashamala (NWFP); Madiha, Yasmeen Akhtar, Mubeen Hanif (Punjab); Shahida Yousuf (PWD); Rizwana Saleem, Rabia, Naureen Zulfiqar (Railways); Quratulain, Urooj Nizam, Abeera Ali, Zainab Shafi, Anam Saeed (Sindh); Sadia Falaksher, Shabnam Yasmeen, Loiza Irshad, Sidra Sattar, Ayesha Iqbal, Sanam Arzoo, Nadia (Wapda).