April 12, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 5, 1429

KARACHI, April 11: The men’s singles qualifying round for the Pakistan Open tennis championship begins at the Karachi Club courts on Saturday.

The top eight qualifiers, all quarter-finalists, will step into the main round and join the 20 PTF ranking players and four wild cards in a draw of 32.

Meanwhile, according to draws, defending champion Aqeel Khan has been top seeded in the men’s singles. He is followed by Jalil Khan, Asim Shafik and Nomi Qamar.

Aqeel fought tooth and nail to overcome brother Jalil 7-5, 7-6 (11-9) in the last year’s marathon final to land men’s singles crown at the CDGK Sports Complex.

This will be Nomi’s first appearance after completing a two-month ban which was slapped on him by the Sindh Tennis Association (STA) for ‘unsporting attitude’ at the closing ceremony of the 11th Sindh Games held in the recent past at Sukkur.

Islamabad’s Sara Mehboob heads the seeding in ladies singles. She is followed by last year’s runner up Sara Mansoor.

Promising Syed Zuhair Raza, Adil Kohari and Khwaja Hamza tops the seeding in juniors U-17, boys U-15 and U-13 singles.

The main round of the competition starts Sunday.

Saturday’s fixtures:

Men’s singles qualifying rounds at 9:00am