KARACHI: Pakistan’s former tennis champion Nida Waseem, who has been awarded the National Youth Award for her success in national and international events, is planning to return to competitive tennis next year after finishing her law degree.
Motivated by the Youth Award, Nida says that she is interested in making a successful comeback on the international circuit in 2008 and may also start competing in international events sanctioned by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA).
“It feels great to receive such a prestigious award,” Nida told ‘The News’ in an interview here on Wednesday. “I’ve been planning to resume my tennis career next year and this award has given me further motivation to do so,” said the former Pakistan No. 1.
Now 24, Nida dominated the Pakistan tennis scene as a teenager and was once the country’s youngest national champion.
As a junior player, she rose to join the top-ten club in Asia and has the distinction of beating Indian tennis queen Sania Mirza in an International Tennis Federation (ITF) junior ranking event in Islamabad in 2000.
Later, she went to the US for studies before joining a prestigious college in London where she is studying for a law degree. She was the captain of the Boston College women’s tennis team and was also awarded the “Leadership Award” in 2005 by her college.
“My studies did keep me away from tennis but I try to play whenever there is some free time,” she said. “These days while studying in London, I don’t get much time for tennis so I try to keep myself fit by playing squash every now and then,” she added.
Nida does occasionally play at home in national ranking events whenever she is in Karachi for vacations but in spite of being mostly away from competitive tennis she still remains unbeaten on the national circuit since 1997.
The Karachi girl agrees that the domestic circuit is not very challenging in spite of the arrival of a few talented young girls.
“I’m aware that the competition in Pakistan is still not very high but I have to begin from somewhere before trying to start playing on the international circuit,” she explained.
Nida is also looking forward to playing in the Pakistan-India series scheduled to be held in November if the event’s organisers managed to materialise their plans to introduce a mixed doubles event to the series.
The Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) is trying to have a mixed doubles event in the series in Indian involving Sania Mirza, India great Leander Paes, Pakistan star Aisam-ul-Haq and Nida Waseem.
“The PTF is keeping me in the loop over the series against India and I will love to be a part of it,” she added.
