ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tennis Federation is all set to organise fund-raisers this year in the United States, England and Turkey, Dawn has learnt.

“We have worked out a proposal for holding fund-raisers in three countries to generate the much-needed finances for the federation,” PTF’s senior vice-president Irshad Bhatti said.

“In the USA and UK we will be holding two-month long fund-raising campaigns and few singers from Pakistan will be part of our team. We are quite optimistic of holding successful events,” he claimed.

Bhatti claimed that they were hopeful of generating around $100,000 from the three events to be held any time this year.

The PTF, he said, had already discussed modalities for generating funds with Turkey’s tennis federation.

“Besides generating funds in Turkey, the Turkish tennis officials have also agreed to extend professional training to Pakistan’s 20 junior players,” he said.

The official maintained that these 20 players would be selected from the PTF’s Summer Tennis Programmes, initiated in different cities across Pakistan, and sent to Turkey.

Asked about the current financial position of the PTF, Bhatti said: “The financial kitty of the federation is improving with every passing week, however, we will be in a better position to comment on federation’s accounts at the end of the financial year.”

Meanwhile, he informed that Pakistan’s top ranked tennis player Aqeel Khan would be sent to the USA for month-long training.

“For Aqeel we have devised a plan … he will be off to the USA before the start of the Davis Cup,” added Bhatti.

This year, the Davis Cup is slated to be held in South Korea from July 8.

He added that to engage better administrators for the promotion of the sport the federation has decided to fire six officials from the federation.

Bhatti pointed out: “These six officials were not performing as per the required needs and we have decided to fire them and final decision will be announced after next month’s working committee’s meeting.”