ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) as per expectations include name of Usman Ejaz for the Davis Cup Asia Oceania Group-II tie against Vietnam starting from February 14-16.
After confirmation of non-availability of Aisamul Haq Qureshi for Davis Cup tie, PTF president Kaleem Imam had the option to utilize his constitutional powers and include the best available player as the fourth member, but he, bowing down under pressure from some certain quarters, decided to include Usman Ejaz, who remained fifth in the trial matches.
After consultation with Senator Syed Dilawar Abbas, PTF patron, Kaleem has announced the four-member squad and non-playing captain of Pakistan Davis Cup team against Vietnam. Aqeel Khan, Yasir Khan, M Abid and Usman Ejaz are players while M Khalid is non-playing captain.
Players are already training at Pakistan Sports Complex synthetic turf while the PTF has decided to send the team one week earlier in order to acclimatize the playing condition in Vietnam.
The PTF should have used commonsense and instead of going with relatively inexperienced side with the only exception of Aqeel Khan, the PTF should either include Shahzad Khan, who was highly recommended by Aqeel or go for experienced lad Samir Iftikhar, who had the past experience of playing in the Davis Cup ties and is on a roll as he is currently playing top quality tennis in US. But the federation had other ideas and now the balance of the tie swiftly turned into the hosts’ favour and odds are heavily against Pakistan team and now only a miracle can save Pakistan blushes against Vietnam.