LAHORE - Mujtaba Ali Khan and Taylor Goetz – both from USA – have grabbed the boys and girls singles titles in the ITF Pakistan ITA-Midcourt International Juniors Tennis Championships 2021 that concluded at PTF Tennis Complex Islamabad. 
In the action-packed boys’ singles final, Mujtaba made a strong comeback to overcome strong second seed Russian Amir Asylkozhaev by 7-6(3), 6-2. In the first set, Mujtaba was down 0-5 after wasting three game points in the third game, as his opponent was good enough in forehand drives. Mujtaba then bounced back and broke the seventh and ninth serve of the opponent to level the score at 5-all after holding the serve in 10th game of the first set. Khan had a chance to win the set at 7-5 when he broke the serve in the 11th game but he failed to maintain his good show in the 12th game. In the tie-break, he won the set 7-3 in the tie-break to take 1-0 lead. 
In the second set, both the finalists started well and matched fire-with-fire till it was 2-all. After that, Mujtaba showed his class and put his opponent under pressure by playing powerful forehand and backhand drives from base-line and won the decisive set 6-2 to clinch the title and coveted trophy.  
Talking to The Nation after registering title win, Mujtaba said: “I am very glad with my performance. Although I wasn’t well settled in the first set and was down 0-5, but I tried hard to win even a single point and that single lucky point gave me courage and confidence and then I never looked back and went on to first win the crucial first set in tie-breaker and then comfortably took the second and decisive set to claim the title, which made me and my family proud.” Earlier in the girls’ singles final, Taylor Goetz of USA emerged as title winner as she overwhelmed Nepal’s Abhilasha Bista by 2-0 with a score of 6-1, 6-1.
 Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) Secretary General Col (R) Gul Rehman graced the concluding ceremony as chief guest and distributed prizes among the winners and runners-up.