June 05, 2008	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 30, 1429

KARACHI, June 4: The Karachi-leg of Junior Tennis Initiative (JTI) programme has been hit by snags since last one year and is an ample proof how sketchily things move in this country.

The Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF), last year in July, announced to launch the programme across the country including Karachi which was aimed at encouraging boys and girls between the age group of 6 to 14 years to adopt the sport.

The programme is part of International Tennis Federation (ITF) which has sent equipments —mini tennis nets, mini rackets and balls — to the PTF more than a year ago but unfortunately it has not been disbursed to would-be future stars.

Pakistan is among a couple of other countries chosen by the world governing body of the game for the proposed programme, held twice in the past.

After receiving the equipments, the PTF directed Sindh, Punjab and Islamabad to appoint coordinators for the basic grooming of teenagers. The coordinators should be Level 1, 2 or 3 coaches or equivalent with good playing level and organisational and administrative skills and reasonable educational background.

“The PTF told us that it was their desire to start the programme at Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad simultaneously in response to our request to send the equipments, secretary, Sindh Tennis Association (STA), Khalid Rehmani, when approached for comments, told Dawn on Wednesday.

He said the STA had recommended the name of ITF Level 1 coach Ejaz Sarhadi for the assignment.

Meanwhile, tennis circle fears that either the equipments are lying in dust or have been distributed among near and dear ones.