With scandals galore, Pakistan Tennis falls to an all-time low
News from Myanmar indicates that Pakistan’s Davis Cup team has been defaulted from their Davis Cup tie against New Zealand. Pakistan had chosen Myanmar as their home ground owing to New Zealand’s refusal to travel to Pakistan for the tie. The Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) had sent treasurer Arif Qureshi to Myanmar to check out the facilities and the court. Upon Qureshi’s approval, the tie was scheduled there. When the New Zealanders started practicing on the court they found it to be seriously substandard and decided to play only under protest. With Pakistan leading by one rubber and in a strong position in the second, the New Zealanders protested at the deteriorating condition of the court. There was a hole an inch deep and six inches across behind the baseline on one side of the court. The rest of the court was also much below match standard let alone international standard.
The referee then asked the Myanmar authorities whether a match had ever taken place on this court. The reply was that no match had taken place on it for the past thirty years. Since it was Pakistan’s responsibility to provide a proper match court and this they had failed to do, the match was immediately awarded to New Zealand. There are reports that a heavy fine may also be imposed upon the Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF). To have sent a non technical and non- tennis playing duo like Qureshi and Shahzad well before the tie to make preparations was simply asking for trouble. It is quite possible that, had there been knowledgeable persons in charge, the tie could have been held thirty miles from Lahore, in Amritsar. There is a high probability that there would be a grass court of acceptable quality there. If not Amritsar, then Delhi certainly has excellent grass courts.
Earlier, on March 24th, Pakistan’s Junior Davis Cup player, Mudassar, was deported from Malaysia where he had gone to take part in a Junior Davis Cup competition. The youngster from an impoverished background from Jahanian, was to participate in an ITF event along with the son of President PTF Kaleem Imam, Nofil Kaleem. To send a boy to a foreign country, alone, with almost no money and without anyone to look after him, was surely a recipe for disaster and lo and behold, it happened. Mudassar was reportedly held for a day or two at the airport and was summarily deported. What a depressing state of affairs. The PTF saw fit to send two unqualified people to Myanmar and to send an unaccompanied boy to Malaysia is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in Pakistan tennis.
Former Davis Cup players including a Pride of Performance player are aghast at the extraordinary state of affairs in the PTF. They question, why Arif Qureshi is being allowed to be treasurer PTF for the third term whereas the POA, on which the PSB or sports ministry has no lien whatsoever, was ‘suspended’ for the exact same reason. And it is these same people who are playing merry hell with the sport. People who have never played the sport and are so incompetent that they have never progressed beyond the most basic umpiring qualification in twenty years of trying, are being given responsibilities that they are least qualified to do justice to. It is time Kaleem Imam finally got rid of these illegal, unqualified people otherwise anything might happen.
There are other scandalous rumours floating around that are an indication of the rot that has set in. A former Davis Cup player says that trials for the Under-14 and Under-16 teams were manipulated and money was given to one player to lose so that the blue eyed son of a PTF official could play both Under 14 and Under 16 teams. One of the two Under-14 players was to also play in the Under-16 matches. The boy from Jahanian had earlier beaten the blue eyed boy 6-0, 6-1. The Davis Cupper says that he saw negotiations being made and money changing hands so that the better player lose to the blue eyed boy. In this way the blue eyed qualified for both events. Even then, because of the PTF’s incompetence, the team could not play or at least play at full strength in the Junior Davis Cup because Mudassar was deported from Malaysia. Can it get any worse than this?
A senior PTF official had, earlier, made the astonishing statement that the future of Pakistan tennis was his son. This had sent a wave of anxiety through the tennis fraternity, because parents of other children knew that the same victimization and nepotism that had been the norm in the past eight years had mutated into an even more vicious and deadly strain.
These PTF officials have been doing these shenanigans for a long time now. But they are masters of ingratiating themselves with PTF high-ups by promoting the careers of their children and driving away their rivals. They are doing exactly that in the present set up. It is about time tennis lovers rose up in protest.
When this new setup took over a couple of years ago, there was hope of a fresh start. But the biggest mistake was to retain the previous lot who are masters at nepotism, mismanagement and victimization. President Kaleem Imam had been warned more than once, even in this column, that this was a huge mistake. The advice was ignored and now the chickens have come home to roost.
Our tennis has fallen to an all time low. The disastrous Dilawar Abbas years and now these two years have meant that no players are coming up who can replace Aisam and Aqeel. These two started playing Davis Cup in 1998 and no other player has been developed. Those that showed potential were victimized and discouraged.
The PTF secretary who is supposed to be the nerve center of the Federation is a non tennis player and is nowhere to found. He has delegated responsibility to the usual suspects who are continuing to make hay rain or shine.
The Pakistan Sports Board should take serious notice of this catastrophic state of affairs. The PSB is seriously at fault in allowing an office-bearer to stay in office for a third term in blatant contravention of the Sports Policy. This stinks of mala fide intentions. Accountability must be across the board and seen to be across the board.
