Pakistan may host major ITF event this year: PTF official

 

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is likely to stage an International Tennis Federation (ITF) event this year after the country’s tennis federation received positive response from several Asian federations, Dawn has learnt on authority.

Since the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in March 2009, Pakistan has lost hosting rights of several major games including squash, cricket, hockey, sailing and tennis, besides suffering financial losses relating to advertisement and sponsorships. The ITF events, if they go through, could be a big boost for Pakistan in these circumstances.

“We have received good response from Suresh Menon, ITF Development Officer for Asia, over holding an international junior level tournament within this year and he will be visiting Pakistan before August,” Irshad Bhatti, senior vice president of the PTF told Dawn on Friday.ITF cancelled two junior championships last year which were to be held in Pakistan, saying they [PTF] did not receive enough entries from international players and it did not want to risk the security of foreign players.“Realistically, the situation is far better from 2010. An international boxing event was held last year in Karachi and it went fine,” Irshad maintained.

Asked what measures would they be taking to provide foolproof security to the foreign players, he said: “Security is always a primary subject for discussion when planning any national or international event. We have a professional police force as well as paramilitary forces which can assure foolproof security.”He said the visit of ITF’s development officer would open avenues for future international events to be held in Pakistan.“We are not asking for money. We are looking at grooming the young and emerging talent which will only be possible if we get more international events organised at home,” he said.

Quoting the ITF development officer Suresh Menon, Irshad said: “The development officer has shown his full support for a school-level tennis initiative besides assuring us of a supply of equipment.”The PTF official informed that ITF would also sponsor a level-II training course for the coaches this year.The PTF official claimed: “Aisam’s impressive speech at US Open Tennis Tournament last year has sent a strong message of peace across the globe and PTF is working on the same lines to produce more players like Aisam and ensure a positive image of Pakistan globally.”