KARACHI: Samir Iftikhar’s failure left Pakistan and Chinese Taipei 1-1 on the first day of the final of Asia/Oceania Group-II at Ulusal Tenis Egitim Merkezi Tennis Club, Izmir, Turkey, on Friday.
In the first singles match, Aqeel Khan showed his best performance to defeat Chinese Taipei’s No 2 Jui-Chen Hung 5-7, 6-4, 6-1, 6-4 to help Pakistan take the lead.
But in the second singles Samir was beaten by Jimmy Wang. Samir was completely routed by the excellent performance of Jimmy, Chinese Taipei’s No 1.
Samir suffered a straight set defeat 3-6, 2-6, 0-6.
“All happened as we expected. The tie is still open. We are now heavily depending on the doubles match tomorrow (Saturday) and if we lose that the tie would become difficult for us,” said non-playing captain Hameed-ul-Haq while talking to ‘The News’ from Izmir.
Hameed said the doubles match was so crucial that they had decided to field trusted pair of Aqeel and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi. “Our strategy is to not to let any player play more than two days. Aqeel is not tired enough to skip doubles match,” added Hameed.
He said that on the last day of the tie they would field Aisam against Jui-Chen Hung and Abid Ali Akbar against Jimmy. “We have got good practice here and coming here 10 days earlier benefitted us. The weather is normal for us,” said Hameed.
However, he added, the court was a bit slow. “Things are in our support here and we are confident that we will win this tie. Aqeel and Aisam will put a good show to take lead as doubles match is our strong point. The second day is very very crucial,” he added.