ISLAMABAD, May 7: Syed Dilawar Abbas, the president of Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) on Friday called upon Aisamul Haq to play this fall's Davis Cup tie against New Zealand for the sake of the country.
"I sincerely want him to come and play and assure him that the PTF would do justice as it has always done," Dilawar told a press conference at the Islamabad Club. "We have never backed out of our commitments to the players and for a youngster like Aisam, it should be an honour to represent his country."
Aisam, who is demanding $10,000 in appearance money and along with it a win bonus of $5000, has not made himself available for the Sept 24 to 26 tie in Islamabad. Although not saying if Aisam's demands were fair or not, Dilawar gave out all the facts and figures relating to players' payments made by the PTF and the money received from the International Tennis Federation (ITF).
"We have given Aisam $21935 for playing the ties against China, Korea and New Zealand and Rs 53510 in prize money." The PTF, Dilawar said received around $20,000 for each Davis Cup tie but pointed out that there were certain expenses that had to be met from these funds.
"The annual renewal fee is $12,000 which is deducted by the ITF from the original amount and that leaves us with only $8,000." "The ties we organize at home are a bit more comfortable for us as we can save on players' travel and certain other areas but still the referee's fee, travel, boarding and lodging expenses have to be borne by us."
He said that when playing away ties, PTF incurred a major expense on purchase of tickets plus boarding and lodging. According to ITF, a sum of $4890 is to be distributed among the players and their coach out of which Aisam is given $2000 while $15210 is received in lieu of advertising.
Last year the PTF gave away Rs 350,000 to top player Aqeel Khan, Rs 83,000 to Nomi Qamar, Jalil Khan (Rs 30,000), Asim Shafik (Rs 67,000) with Aisam getting Rs 53510. Dilawar said that Aisam was also paid $1500 by the PTF for appearing in the Futures competition.
Meanwhile, the PTF plans to add four new courts and two centre courts of international standard with seating, to its complex in Islamabad. Also some rooms are to be added for the players so that they could stay there during training camps.
"This is our foremost objective and I hope that all this would be done by December of this year or early January." Dilawar is also concentrating on organizing more junior tournaments.
"I am asking my affiliated units to stage such events so that we can build up our junior team." The PTF is to organize two ITF junior tournaments in Karachi this September and four satellite competitions.