Czech Republic rejects visas to under-14 tennis team

KARACHI: Czech Republic has rejected the visa applications of the national under-14 tennis team which was to participate in the finals of World Junior Tennis (WJT) Team Championship after 27 years.

“The team’s visas got rejected as Pakistan Tennis Federation did not apply in time for the event that is scheduled in Prostejov, Czech Republic, from August 7-12,” said a source while talking to ‘The News’.

“PTF also approached International Tennis Federation to get Czech Republic to reconsider their decision of rejecting the visa applications but that effort too was unsuccessful,” said the source.

Interestingly, said the source, the son of President PTF Salim Saifullah is the honorary consul of Czech Republic. The source added that Pakistan lost an important opportunity of playing the World Group finals in which the world’s top 16 teams will compete just because of the inefficiency of the current PTF management.

Pakistan’s team qualified for the finals for the first time since 1996 after recording wins in the Asia/Oceania Qualifying round in Kuching, Malaysia, in March this year. The team comprising Hamza Roman, Abubakar Talha, and Amir Muhammad Khan Mazari registered wins against Hong Kong in the semifinal. The Asian teams which qualified for the finals were Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Pakistan. The countries that competed in the qualifying round were Australia, Japan, South Korea, India, Iran, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Hong Kong, Uzbekistan, Chinese Taipei, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Pakistan.