KARACHI: Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) is writing a letter to the International Tennis Federation (ITF) to protest against their decision of not giving Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi a wild card for Olympics.
President PTF Kaleem Imam told ‘The News’ that they would dispatch in a day or two the letter to the international body because they believed that Aisam deserved a wild card because of his performance in the international tennis.
“We tried our best in this regard. I had written ITF a request letter. I personally talked to the President Asian Tennis Federation Anil Khanna, who is also a member of the executive committee of ITF. I also talked to a Chinese woman board member of ITF for favouring Aisam during the meeting to finalise the wild cards,” he added.
“Aisam’s hard luck also played a role as he could not finish in the top ten by the cut off date.
“We know there is a lot of competition in tennis these days,” said the president PTF.
About hosting tennis event in the country, he said that one of their board members, Dilawar Abbas, had recently attended a meeting of ITF where Pakistan got an informal approval to hold an international junior event in the country later this year.
“But we will have to seek a final approval,” he added.
About the Supreme Court’s decision against holding offices in sports bodies for more than two times, he said they would implement all the orders of the court.
“Only our treasurer (Arif Qureshi) is to be affected by this ruling as he was elected for the third time in the current PTF body,” he said.
