ISLAMABAD - Pakistan’s longest serving number 1 tennis player Aqeel Khan Sunday urged Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) to dig deep and find fresh talent otherwise Pakistan future in Davis Cup Group-II is also under serious threat.
Talking to The Nation Aqeel said he and Aisam could hardly represent country in Davis Cup for another two or may be three years and that too only in doubles and he was very concerned about the prospect of who was going to play singles matches for Pakistan and carve out victory.
“I have serious doubts about even current crop of players are capable of winning in the Davis Cup ties. PTF must start to search for grass roots level talent and I am willing to help the PTF in identifying and grooming the fresh talent. I had in the past requested several times to Chief Minister Sindh and Commissioner Karachi to allocate a piece of land where I could construct an international level tennis academy, and I had also tendered same request to Capital Development Authority (CDA) as it is my moral and national duty to help country in the best possible way. I once again request Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Chairman CDA, Chief Minister and Governor Sindh to look into this matter of grave importance for the country as the future of Pakistan tennis depend on finding fresh talent.”
Aqeel said he was still not fully fit from his shoulder injury but will play in back-to-back ranking events in Islamabad and would continue his training for the next two weeks to regain full fitness.
He said it was his dream to take Pakistan back to Group-I in Davis Cup but unfortunately things didn’t went in our favour but now he had turned his attention towards future. “Now we would play Davis Cup Asia-Oceania Group-II match against Kuwait in March. It is our own choice venue and I would request PTF to arrange neutral venue for a specific period of time as we have to play second match against either Indonesia or Iran in July and that tie is also our home tie.”