Hello everyone!

I am Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and I will be communicating with you through this blog, InshaAllah. First off, I want to thank everyone for supporting me through all these years. I really appreciate it and hope that it continues in the future as well!

I will be playing in the Barcelona Open this week. For the last few weeks, I have been grinding it out on dirt (a term we use on tour while playing on clay courts). All my life, I have tried to avoid clay but this year I am taking a different approach by playing in as many clay-court tournaments as possible to give myself a good shot at the French Open.

I made it to two finals in the last three tournaments I have played in so far – a Challenger in Napoli, an ATP tournament in Casablanca and another Challenger in Rome. I actually surprised myself by making it to two back-to-back finals on clay. It was quite disappointing to lose in the final in Morocco as Rohan (Bopanna) and I had a really good chance of winning it. But I guess it was Allah’s way of telling us that we still have a lot to learn on this surface. :)

It was my first time in North Africa and it was a strange experience as it did not seem like an Arab country at all. Everyone preferred to speak French instead of Arabic and even most of the TV channels were in French!

Overall, it was a great tournament, especially because being a Muslim I got a lot of support from the locals.

This will be it for this time. I plan to write another blog before the French Open and another one after it.

Please feel free to ask any questions and InshaAllah, I will try my best to reply to as many as possible (while on tour!).

—Aisam

(Photo illustration by Eefa Khalid)