Number of Pak juniors playing international tennis increasing

KARACHI: The number of juniors playing international tennis circuit has increased but the number of professional tennis players from Pakistan has been on continuous decline since 2017.

According to International Tennis Federation’s Global Tennis Report 2021, there were five Pakistan juniors playing international circuit in 2017. The number rose to 17 in 2018, and to 27 in 2020.

However, the number of professional international players was five in 2017, grew to six in 2018 but declined to two in 2019 and zero in 2020.

The junior players are those who hold an ITF Junior World Tennis Tour ranking in a calendar year and professional players are those who held an ATP ranking.

It is to be noted that Global Tennis Report 2021 is a report on tennis participation and performance of tennis playing countries worldwide.

The report focuses on the number of tennis players, access to tennis (number of clubs and courts), and tennis delivery (number of tennis coaches).

The report shows that tennis is a growing sport with a rise in participation of 4.5% in 41 most active tennis playing nations whose contribution is more than 90%.

But Pakistan is not among those 41 nations. Pakistan’s two neighbouring countries Iran and India are very much part of these most active nations.

According to the report, India has 8900 tennis players and 7400 tennis clubs with 28500 tennis courts while there are 2300 coaches. Iran has 11000 players, 200 clubs, 870 courts, and 1264 coaches.

In 2016, ITF Development Officer Asia Suresh Menon during his visit to Pakistan lauded some efforts of the Pakistan Tennis Federation regarding the development of the sport in the country.

“I was happy to learn about the excellent prize money offered in the domestic circuit. There are 17 national tournaments offering reasonably good prize money,” said Suresh.

He added that this was certainly a positive development to continually motivate more players to pursue the game quite seriously.

“PTF also gives allowance to main draw players. This all augurs well for higher level player development,” said Suresh.

However, he added, PTF should work to establish a quality program at the PTF and Regional centers because tennis is still mostly played in clubs in Pakistan.

“The challenge is to improve grassroots development and increase the base. PTF facility is not being utilized fully,” said Suresh.

He said that many of the courts at PTF Tennis Complex were empty throughout the day and much in the evening.

“PTF should create more adult programs like tennis express, cardio tennis etc. Due to limited public tennis facilities in Pakistan, PTF could also consider building tennis courts in a city/region which has no public tennis courts,” said Suresh.