Shahzad, Heera earn Davis Cup team berths

ISLAMABAD: Shahzad Khan and Heera Ashiq will join Aisamul Haq Qureshi, Aqeel Khan and Muzammil Murtaza to complete Pakistan’s team for next month’s Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Group I tie against Uzbekistan.

According to a press release, the Pakistan Tennis Federation conducted trial matches among the three highest ranked national players after Aqeel to fill the two vacant places in the team. Although Shahzad, Heera and M Abid Mushtaq registered the same number of wins in the trials, the first two were picked on the basis of head-to-head win count.

In the last match, Shahzad beat Heera 6-1, 6-2. Earlier, Heera had beaten Abid 7-6, 6-3 while Abid had won over Shahzad 6-7, 7-5, 6-3. The selection trials were held on the grass courts of the Aisamul Haq Tennis Complex at the Pakistan Sports Complex here from March 17-19.

All the players will travel to Lahore to play in the Sheheryar Malik National Grass Court Championships from March 25-31. The Davis Cup team players will also hold practice and training sessions during the course of the tournament. On return to Islamabad, they will get another four days or so to train on grass before the Davis Cup tie on April 6-7.

Aisam is expected to join the team at the end of the current month or early April.PTF President Salim Saifullah Khan was keen to have three top juniors also attend the trials but the plan could not materialise as Shoaib Khan was playing the JDC event in Colombo and was to sit for his exams on return. The Inter-Provincial Games were also being held in Peshawar in which two other juniors were playing.