March 15, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 6, 1429

KARACHI, March 14: Top tennis players are set to renew their rivalry when the third Sindh ranking tennis tournament of the calendar gets into action at the Beach View Club courts on Saturday.

Though located far flung, the venue is a new addition to the list of Sindh Tennis Association (STA).

The recently-concluded second event witnessed some surprising results in which at least two better players made premature exit. Junior international Nasir Mushtaq fell to new find Asfand Rauf in men’s singles while tennis prodigy Khawaja Hamza tasted first defeat of his career to Imran Mooraj in the boys U-13 singles semi-final.

Jalil Khan, the winner of men’s singles and losing finalist Yasir Khan will miss the event as they are away in Islamabad while Nasir has gone to Brunei to play in the ITF juniors U-18 tournament.

Two more players — Nomi Qamar and Khalid Ali Nazar — are also set to skip the event like the previous one as they are serving a two-month ban on disciplinary grounds.

The event, which carries a total prize money of Rs25,000, will be contested in men’s singles, juniors U-17 singles, boys U-15, U-13, U-11 and U-9 singles.

In view of the limited ladies entries, the organisers are undecided about holding the competition.

Strangely, the players from Hyderabad and upper Sindh have again opted to stay away from the event which is meant for the players of the province. It is high time the STA made their participation mandatory in at least three of the planned six events during the year.

Meanwhile, the STA has penalised five players with 20 penalty points in addition to imposing a fine of Rs500 apiece on account of walkovers during Talent Hunt and two Sindh ranking tournaments.

Those penalised have been identified as Ahmed Qureshi, Murad Khan, ball boy Aqeel Khan, Azher Qureshi and Adnan Yousuf.

Saturday’s fixtures:

Juniors U-17 singles 9.00am; boys U-9 round robin 1.00pm.