KARACHI, June 2: After making a long lasting impact by sponsoring a number of disciplines from hockey to football to snooker, the state-owned National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) has come forward to promote tennis by sponsoring the NBP Open ranking tennis championship which runs at the Modern Club from June 8 to 13.

The bank is organising the first-ever event in collaboration with the Sindh Tennis Association (STA) which carries a purse of Rs25,000 to be disbursed among men’s, ladies and juniors under-17 singles winners and runners-up.

With the exception of country’s top player Aqeel Khan who is away from the country, the other available players Jalil Khan, Yasir Khan, Nomi Qamar, Seher Khawaja, Talha Zubair to name a few, will vie for honours.

According to an announcement, the first two days have been set aside for qualifiers while the main round gets into action from June 10.

The events that will take place during the weeklong tourney are men’s singles, ladies singles, juniors’ under-17 singles, boys’ and girls’ under-15, under-13 and under-11 singles, boys’ under-9 singles, men’s doubles, boys’ under-15 doubles, seniors’ 35 plus and 45 plus doubles.

Last date for submission of entries is June 6.