Pakistan tennis wants foreign teams to tour

KARACHI - Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) president Dilawar Abbas Friday said he will raise the issue of foreign teams not visiting the embattled country at the International Tennis Federation (ITF) annual general meeting that begins at Madrid from July 15-17.

It is very important for our tennis that foreign teams come to Pakistan for Davis Cups and other international tournaments, Dilawar told The News.

I will certainly be raising this issue at the annual ITF meetings in Madrid, added Dilawar, who is also a vice-president of the Asian Tennis Federation (ATF).

Tennis, which is struggling to get a due recognition in Pakistan, received major setback earlier this year, when two of the countrys Davis Cup ties were relocated from Lahore because of security reasons.

The London-based ITF first moved Pakistans Davis Cup Asia-Oceania Group-I match against Oman from Lahore to Muscat. Pakistan protested against the move but the ITF decided against it. The tie was played in Muscat, where the Pakistanis won it 4-1.

Just a few weeks later, it was decided that Pakistans home game against Philippines will be switched from Lahore to Manila, once again due to security apprehensions.

The move led to a strong protest from the PTF which questioned the security situation in Philippines and asked the Davis Cup authorities to move the tie to a neutral venue.

The PTF wanted the ITF to move the tie to a neutral venue like Malaysia or Singapore.

However, their demand was turned down by the ITF.

On Thursday, the Pakistan team left for Kuala Lumpur to prepare for the July 10-12 tie against Philippines. Dilawar stressed that such decisions would hamper the progress of tennis in Pakistan.

We are making a lot of efforts for the promotion of tennis but we need support from the international tennis community, he said. We need teams to resume their tours of Pakistan because without that it would be tough to bring an improvement in our standard, he added.

Dilawar said he will personally speak to top officials of the ITF to ensure that Pakistan get to host their share of Davis Cup matches in the future.