October 11, 2008	Saturday	Shawwal 11, 1429

KARACHI, Oct 10: Dr Sultan Ganji, the tournament referee for ITF Pakistan Futures, arrived in Islamabad from London on Friday to supervise three back-to-back events.

After his arrival, he went round the PTF tennis complex and inspected the facilities made available for two of the three tournaments. The third leg will be staged at Lahore.

Dr Ganji, who hails from Mozambique and is settled in London, is visiting Pakistan second time as he had conducted the ITF Pakistan Futures last year also.

At the time of filing this report, seven players two apiece from Thailand and India, and one each from UK, Holland and Tunisia have reached the capital.

The sign-in for the qualifiers will be held from 12:00noon to 6;00pm on Saturday followed by the draw for qualifying rounds which begins on Sunday.

“The qualifiers will run for two days if the draw is of 32 while the duration will be reduced to a single day in case of fewer entries,” an official of the PTF quoting the ITF official told Dawn.

According to PTF, eight qualifiers are to join 20 ITF ranking players and four wildcards in the main round.

Meanwhile, three ITF white badge umpires from the host country will assist Dr Ganji. They include Mohammad Arif Qureshi, Shahzad Akhtar Alvi and Asif Akhtar Alvi.