October 09, 2008	Thursday	Shawwal 9, 1429

KARACHI, Oct 8: Highly talented Aqeel Khan is the lone home player placed in the main draw of the ITF Pakistan Futures which gets into action at Islamabad’s PTF tennis complex clay courts from Oct 13 with players from some 15 foreign nations vying for honours.

Aqeel, 28, is seeded fourth for the first of the three Futures. Romania’s Bodgan Victor Leonte has been top seeded followed by India’s Sunil Kumar Sipaeya and Russia’s Mikhail Vasiliev.

The main round will be preceded by a two-day qualifying round at the same venue.

Eight qualifiers are to join 20 ITF ranking players while the hosts will field four wild cards to complete singles draw of 32.

The Futures envisages men’s singles and men’s doubles and each contest carries cash prize money of $10,000.

The first leg of Futures will be immediately followed by the second at the same venue while the third will be staged at Lahore.

The ITF has nominated Dr Sultan Ganji as the tournament referee for Pakistan Futures. He is due to reach Islamabad from London on Friday.

Pakistan will name four wild card players for the main draw on Friday. Five players namely Jibran Mohammadi, Asim Shafik, Yasir Khan, Tanveer Ashiq and Jalil Khan are in contention for the four slots, PTF secretary Rashid Khan told Dawn on Wednesday.

These players have assembled in the capital and were going through the drills, he said.

The PTF official said foreign players are expected to start arriving in Islamabad from Thursday.

To a question, he said PTF would incur some Rs4 million on staging the three Futures including the prize money.

“I’m impressed with the encouraging response from foreign players who are eager to travel to Pakistan and have expressed no reservations about security,” he said when asked whether foreigners have shown some fear in coming to Pakistan.

He went on to say that Pakistan will also play host to two ITF Women’s Futures at Islamabad in November-December.