It would not be disputable to say that Pakistan achieved a great feat by overcoming the formidable Taiwan in the final of the Davis Cup Asia Oceania Zone group at Lahore. But its performance against Chile in the play-off of the World Group two months ago was a horrible one as none of our player could win a set, and we lost by 0-5.
September’s humiliation proved that we were far behind the teams competing in the 16-nation group. Chile has earned a place in the World Group and even after half a century we have yet to secure a place in the same. Indeed, becoming the zone winner is an achievement and Islamabad’s sports bureaucracy, which some people believe has very little knowledge of the standard of tennis in the world, gave lucrative cash awards (worth Rs35 lac) to the Pakistani team which included Aisamul Haq Qureshi, Aqeel Khan Shahzad Khan and Asim Shafik.
Pakistan remains in the Group One of the eight-nation Asia Oceania Zone and is slated to play its first tie against Taiwan in Taiwan from Feb 6-8. If we look at past records, Pakistani teams playing against Taiwan in Taiwan never returned home victorious.
The Asia Oceania Zone Group One event is nine weeks away and a four-member team is likely to be selected from a group of players including Aisamul Qurshi, Aqeel Khan, Shahzad Khan, Asim Shafik, Nomi Qamar, Jalil khan (all Davis-cuppers) and the chances of beating Taiwan on their soil appear to be bleak.
Young Pakistani tennis players need financial assistance to make it big at the international level. Only the PTF can help them make their dream come true
Apprehensions are also being expressed that our top player, Aisam, might prefer not to make himself available for the February tour for one reason or the other. It had happened in the past that he did not make himself available to play for the Pakistan team. Let us hope that Aisam will work more hard to keep himself super fit and other players who will form the team will also carry heavy responsibility to commit themselves professionally to maintain top physical fitness.
A five-set match requires extraordinary fitness to stay on court for a possible victory. Davis Cup matches are a different ball game as compared to three-set encounters of international tournaments.
The Pakistan Tennis Federation should make all the semi-finals and final of every ranking tournament a five-set affair to fully asses match fitness of our players. But the PTF, perhaps, believes that over half a dozen national ranking tournaments in a year are good enough to raise the standard of the game. Holding a chain of tournaments certainly provides opportunities to the players to gain experience and confidence, but it alone will not help in improving our national standard. Therefore talented young players must be funded for competing in international tournaments outside the country.
Aisam’s parents spent a considerable amount of money on their son’s training and coaching and engaged a foreign coach for his grooming at the international level. Aisam competed in a good number of international tournaments, mostly in Europe and the US and he’s one of the 300 world ranking players.
But other talented players like Aqeel Khan and Asim Shafik have no financial resources to compete in foreign tournaments. It was considered a late decision on the part of the federation to extend financial support to Aqeel Khan a year ago for competing in the Indian circuit. Aqeel Khan should have been given financial support and backing about four years ago.
Talented youngsters need PTF funding for taking part in the junior level international tournaments in Asia before competing in the European and US circuits. Unfortunately, the PTF has not fully committed itself to laying a strong base at the junior level with the result that Pakistani youngsters gave a disappointing performance in the two ITF juniors championships held in Islamabad and Lahore.
Indian boys and girls made a clean sweep of the international juniors tournaments held in September. In India there are a number of tennis academies in every province and thousands of youngsters are trained and coached on a regular basis. But in our country no importance is given by the PTF to set up permanent coaching and training centres at Islamabad, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Karachi, Hyderabad, Peshawar, and Quetta.
Monitoring the activities of associations of Punjab, Sindh, the NWFP and Balochistan as well as of other units is of paramount importance as merely holding one or two tournaments does not justify their existence unless these associations religiously commit themselves to promoting the game in their respective areas.
The federation seems to be lacking the commitment to raise the standard of tennis in the country. It can get its junior programme implemented by its affiliated units by providing playing equipments to the trainees not more than 10 at one centre.
Private coaching centres are functioning well and earning good money be charging fee from the trainees whose parents can afford to pay. But there are many talented young players in the country whose parents cannot afford high training fee. The country badly needs permanent coaching centres which should be established by provincial associations and the federation should also extend its financial support to such centres.
It would not be disputable to say that Pakistan achieved a great feat by overcoming the formidable Taiwan in the final of the Davis Cup Asia Oceania Zone group at Lahore. But its performance against Chile in the play-off of the World Group two months ago was a horrible one as none of our player could win a set, and we lost by 0-5.
Aisam’s parents spent a considerable amount of money on their son’s training and coaching and engaged a foreign coach for his grooming at the international level. Aisam competed in a good number of international tournaments, mostly in Europe and the US and he’s one of the 300 world ranking players.
The federation seems to be lacking the commitment to raise the standard of tennis in the country. It can get its junior programme implemented by its affiliated units by providing playing equipments to the trainees not more than 10 at one centre.
