Sending team to Sri Lanka was a bad decision: Hai

KARACHI: Chairman Selection Committee of Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) Khwaja Saeed Hai has said Pakistan should have gone to China for Davis Cup tie in March.

“We were not in favour of Sri Lanka as the neutral venue,” said Saeed while talking to ‘The News’.  “I recommended to the secretary to send the team to China but they did not honour the decision of their own Davis Cup Committee,” he said.

He said the decision of Davis Cup Committee of PTF was not conveyed properly to PTF president. “There was lack of coordination. We did not want to send the team to Sri Lanka,” added Saeed.

PTF did not get any benefit from writing to International Tennis Federation (ITF) to force China to play the tie in Pakistan. “We would have saved not only Rs4 million we spent on the neutral venue but also would have got free hospitality if we had gone to China for the tie,” said Saeed.

He said some things were not being done professionally at PTF. “All decisions should be taken by the general body of PTF in order to maintain transparency,” he added.

Talking about the selection of the team for the tie, he said Abid Ali Akbar and Samir Iftikhar should have come for the trials. “But they asked us to directly induct them in the team. Aisam ul Haq is not fit for singles, so we can’t rely on him. Yet he’s better than Samir and Abid Akbar. Our players need physical training. They don’t run. They need weight training to perform better,” said Saeed.

When asked about the tie of Pakistan against New Zealand to stay in the Group-I, he said the chances of winning for Pakistan were 50-50.

Pakistan lost to China 0-5 in their Asia/Oceania round-1 tie held in March.  Pakistan had choice of ground so they went to Sri Lanka but failed to make the most of it.

A former non-playing captain of Pakistan’s Davis Cup team said Pakistan could easily win only on grass courts. “Otherwise all surfaces are the same for them. The choice of clay courts in Sri Lanka was bad since all the players in the team were hard court players,” he explained.