Wheelchair tennis is flourishing in Pakistan through development programmes under the auspices of the Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) and under the umbrella of International Tennis Federation (ITF).

Wheelchair tennis was introduced in Pakistan in 2018 when four tennis wheelchairs were imported by the then President PTF Salim Saifullah Khan. Those chairs were handed over to me to introduce this version of tennis in Karachi.

Since then, we have been able to attract sponsors for long duration wheelchair tennis development and training camps and also to purchase locally manufactured tennis wheelchairs.

Pakistan had its first international exposure in wheelchair tennis in 2021 when a national squad participated in the ITF Wheelchair World Cup at Antalya, Turkey.

After that, another milestone was to participate in Asian Para Games 2023 with the support from National Paralympic Committee and Asian Tennis Federation.

Pakistani players also featured in two ITF qualification mega events in Pattaya in 2023 and 2024.

At the local level, we have been arranging long duration wheelchair tennis coaching camps and appropriate conveyance allowance is also provided to all the participants in such camps.

In 2023 we held such camps in Karachi and Mirpurkhas while introductory camps were held in Lahore and Hyderabad.

In Mirpurkhas, with the help of the local tennis association we operationalised the tennis court (by upgrading, marking and providing tennis net, balls) at the Citizen Gymkhana, which had not been in use for 10 years.

We recently organised camps in Karachi, Mirpurkhas, and Peshawar. As many as 40 physically impaired players attended the Peshawar camp while eight players were in the camp at Mirpurkhas and more than 25 players participated in the camp in Karachi.

We also provide equipment to local tennis associations for the development of wheelchair tennis. Recently, we provided four wheelchairs and four original head rackets to both Peshawar and Mirpurkhas tennis associations.

We plan to expand wheelchair tennis to Quetta later this year while long duration camps will be organised in Karachi, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Lahore, and Peshawar.

In addition to organising camps, we also hold wheelchair tennis competitions in Karachi on a regular basis. This year, we will invite promising wheelchair tennis players from Lahore, Peshawar, Mirpurkhas and Hyderabad in a national event in Karachi to select a team for the 2025 Asian ITF Qualification Tournament.

– The writer is a member of the Wheelchair Committee of Asian Tennis Federation.