PHOTO: FILE
KARACHI: Pakistan’s top tennis player, Sara Mansoor, believes that it is the lack of international exposure and investment on Pakistani female players that has kept the country behind at the 2016 Fed Cup.
Sara, along with Ushna Suhail and Sarah Mahboob, is preparing for the Fed Cup Asia — Oceania Group II that will begin on April 11. According to Sara, when she compares Pakistan to the rest of the 13 playing nations in the group, she feels there is not enough preparation for the big event either.
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“We really need more international tournaments and only that exposure can prepare us for the Fed Cup,” Sara told The Express Tribune. “It’s necessary that we invest more in women’s tennis, we can’t get big results with just local camps in Islamabad.”
The trio will be playing at the Modern Club Founder Member’s Ranking Tournament in Karachi before leaving for Thailand on April 9.
According to the Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) secretary, Khalid Rehmani, it is the thin base for women’s tennis that has prevented Pakistan from progressing at the Fed Cup.
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“We can’t even get a 16-player draw at local tournaments, so there is a problem,” admitted Rehmani. “We hardly get eight players, but we are working on it. My goal is to expand this pool for local female players in two to three years. We’ve started working at grass-roots level with schools in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar to train players.”
Published in The Express Tribune, April 3rd, 2016.
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