Security concerns hit junior tennis event

Federation unable to confirm foreign players’ participation.

KARACHI: The Pakistan Tennis Federation’s (PTF) efforts to bring foreign players to Islamabad for the Asian Tennis Federation (ATF) tournament faced a snag, as the juniors refused to come to Pakistan, citing security reasons.

The PTF, in collaboration with the ATF, had proposed to hold the South Asian U16 Championship in Islamabad from November 20. However, they have not received any response from authorities in Iran, India, Bangladesh, Thailand and Sri Lanka yet.

“Despite having the ATF’s permission to hold regional events, we have not made any progress so far,” PTF Secretary Mumtaz Yousuf told The Express Tribune. “We were looking forward to this opportunity because a successful event would have paved the way for us to host the Davis Cup ties next year. Unfortunately, we have been unable to convince the juniors to come to Islamabad.

“Our next step is to ask the federations to select and send at least five of their players here.”

The PTF gained approval for hosting the championship at the ATF meeting in Bangkok last month.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2012.