No foreign player in ATT events in Islamabad

KARACHI: Not a single player from 43 Asian countries bothered to come to Pakistan to play two international tennis championships scheduled near the end of this month.

It has been learn that no Asian player is participating in $5000 Federal Cup ATT Tennis Championship and $5000 Syed Tajammual Abbas Memorial ATT to be held in Islamabad.

The first event is to be played from October 23-26.

The entry fee is $20 for main draw players and $10 for qualifying players.

The second event is to be played from October 27-30. The entry deadline was 14th and the withdrawal deadline is 21st.

Two other ATT events are scheduled in December.

According to the acceptance list of the first ATT event, the ten players of the main draw are Muzammil Murtaza, Sahibzada Ali Mohammad, Haris Irfanulhaq, Abdaal Haider, Aqeel Khan, Shehzad Khan, Mudasir Murtaza, Ahmed Choudhary, Abdul Rehman Malik, and Arham Khan.

The players of the qualifying draw are Aman Atique Khan, Hamza bin Asif, Talha bin Asif, Moosa Choudhry, Hammad Waqui, Hassan Qureshi, Mohammad Mushtaq, and Imtiaz Aly.

There was only one foreign player in this event, India’s Parth Aggarwal (national ranking 199), but he withdrew, making it a completely Pakistani affair.

The 10 main draw players of the Tajammual Abbas Memorial are Muzammil Murtaza, Sahibzada Ali Mohammad, Haris Irfanulhaq, Abdaal Haider, Aqeel Khan, Mudasir Murtaza, Usman Rafique, Ahmed Choudhry, Ahmad Babar, and Abdul Rehman Malik.

The 11 players of the qualifying draw are Arham Khan, Aman Atique Khan, Faizan Khurrum, Hamza bin Asif, Adnan Rasheed Khan, Talha bib Asif, Moosa Choudhry, Mohammad Mushtaq, Shehzad Khan, Imtiaz Aly, and Usman Ejaz.

“It’s good to have international events happening in Pakistan. This is a positive sign,” said Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) secretary Khalid Rehmani. “We are concerned over zero foreign participation but we will keep holding these events,” he added.

He said the federation had two options: either to abolish these ATT events or to keep holding them in the interest of the sport.

“We have decided to continue with these ATT events. We will try to have foreign participation in future ATT events,” added Khalid.