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Aisam Exudes Confidence Ahead of Aussie Assignment Back To Main

01-Jan-2012

 The News

KARACHI: Pakistan’s tennis ace Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi flew out for Australia on Saturday to compete in a couple of international tournaments in a bid to warm up for the season-open Grand Slam in Melbourne later this month.

Aisam, who had a well-deserved break in hometown Lahore where he got married last month, will feature in the ATP championship in Brisbane and a similar tournament in Sydney before partaking in the 2012 Australian Open that will tee off on January 16 in Melbourne.

He remains upbeat about a forceful showing in Australia in spite of losing his long-time time partner Rohan Bopanna from India. The Pakistani tennis star will feature in the three tournaments in Australia with a new partner after splitting with Bopanna at the end of last season. Aisam will start the 2012 season with Jean-Julien Rojer from Curaçao — a small island nation in the Caribbean — as his new partner. Similar to Aisam, Rojer is the only Curaçaoan in the top-1000 singles rankings.

Together with Rohan, Aisam enjoyed a series of impressive performances on the international circuit.

Popularly known as the Indo-Pak Express, the duo compiled a consistent season, reaching the semifinals or better at seven tournaments in all, including the US Open, where they ended runners-up in 2010.

The Aisam-Rohan team managed to reach the quarterfinals of the French Open where they lost to the Bryan brothers before going the whole hog and winning the Gerry Weber Open. Their biggest achievement of the year though came when they lifted their first Masters title in Paris to become the seventh doubles team to qualify for the ATP World Tour Finals, where they lost all their matches.

However after the season-ending World Tour Finals last November, Rohan dropped a bombshell by announcing that he is splitting with Aisam to join Indian veteran Mahesh Bhupati with an eye on the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Aisam remains upbeat about his chances on the international tour even without Rohan. He promised positive results in Australia especially at the Australian Open — the first Grand Slam of the year. He will get ready for the challenging assignment by playing in the Brisbane event starting from Monday (tomorrow) followed by the Sydney event to be played from January 9.