LAHORE – Pakistan’s number one player Aqeel Khan defended his title at the 2nd Atlas Honda Cup National Tennis Championship at the lush green grass courts of K-21 Club Model Town, Lahore on Saturday.
He retained the title by beating his younger brother and second seed Jalil Khan. Jalil won the toss and served, but went into the defensive with consistent ground strokes. Aqeel, too, took the same approach, taking no risks. In the first set, they both had good serve percentages, which resulted in a score of 4-all.
At this stage, Jalil seemed to panic when he made one double fault, giving his opponent a chance to lead 40-15 in the ninth game and won the game to lead 5-4 in the inaugural set. He held his service game to win the first set 6-4. The second set was not much different from the first set, except that both the finalists started to rush to the net.
Overall, Jalil executed some great volleys at the crucial stages of the set and remained successful in building pressure on his opponent. When the score reached 4-all, Jalil managed to break the ninth game of the set and led by 5 games to 4. Aqeel tried hard to break Jalil’s serve but could not succeed, and lost the final game of the second set. With the score at one set all, the final set started with both Jalil and Aqeel trying to put maximum effort in holding their service games.
Both players tried to dominate with powerful serves. The match entered its most interesting situation when the score was tied at 6 games all. Aqeel won four consecutive points to build an extraordinary pressure on Jalil, who tried hard but lost the set at 6-7(2). Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan was the chief guest at the occasion, while Dr Saeed Elahi and Rao Iftikhar, President PLTA were among the other guests.
Rao Akbar Latif, president K-21 Club, Ms Mahvish from Makro and representatives of Atlas Honda were also present at this occasion. Aitzaz Ahsan distributed the prizes amongst the position holders. Aqeel was awarded a Honda CD70 as a special prize from Atlas Honda. Altogether Rs 400,000 in cash prizes were distributed amongst the winners and runner-ups.
