KARACHI: Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) is holding trials for the next Davis Cup tie on August 16 and has invited eight players.
It has been learned that PTF has invited M Shoaib, M Abid, Yousaf Khalil, Mudassar Murtaza, Barkat Ullah, Abdullah Adnan, Heera Ashiq, and Mujtaba Ali Khan (Presidential Wild Card) for the trials.
It is to be noted that Pakistan is to host Indonesia for Davis Cup World Group II tie at the grass courts of Pakistan Sports Complex in Islamabad from September 15-17.
But inviting no juniors for trials has surprised local tennis fraternity.
“Just a very naive curious question is why not a single junior has been invited for the trails,” asked a local coach while talking to The News.
"There are very good upcoming junior players like Sami Zeb, Bilal Asim (ex-Davis Cupper) and Nael Qureshi,” said the coach.
The coach said that PTF invited junior players for trials and selected a few in the national team last time but it is strange that they did not invite any junior this time.
Interestingly, he added, PTF invited the top eight players from its ranking of men's singles as on December 31, 2022.
The coach said that as per the said rankings Heera Ashiq and Sami Zeb are ranked 9 and 10, respectively, while top tennis player Aqeel is exempted from the trials and Muzamil Murtaza is in the United States.
“Hence, there was a space for Sami in the top eight,” said the coach, adding that Sami was number one under-18 player a few months ago.
He said that the policies of the current management of PTF are hurting the national tennis and resulting in the loss of talented players who could easily replace seasoned Aisam and Aqeel in the national team for Davis Cup.
Our Correspondent