Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) has got a new management after eight years but the issues of the national circuit remain. The new management under the leadership of tennis star Aisam-ul-Haq seems uninterested in resolving these issues.

The first issue is the ‘Pay and Play’ system as PTF is charging hefty fees from young players to use these facilities for playing and training while National Tennis Academy set up in Islamabad by PTF has been restricted to only paid membership.

It was reported sometime back that the national academy has been limited for revenue generation as the rights of admission are reserved with the PTF management, and anyone wishing to play/learn tennis has to first pay and then directed to only one selected coach by the management.

Another issue is the controversial trial policy of PTF as the federation holds trials to select national teams for important Davis Cup ties in a very nonprofessional manner. The prime example in this regard is the direct induction of Ahmad Nael Qureshi in the Davis Cup team for the next tie against Barbados scheduled in September.

Recently, before a very crucial tie against India two key players Abid Ali Akbar and Shahzad Khan did not turn up for the trials while Huzaifa and Ahmed Chaudhary backed out after losing their initial matches.

But PTF management did not bother to seek explanation from all these four players. This was a historic tie as India visited Pakistan after 55 years for Davis Cup, so this kind of trial before a very important Davis Cup tie and that too against India shows the nonprofessional approach of PTF.

Also, Pakistan tennis has been facing acute shortage of umpires which is leading to the practice of tennis events being officiated by players or non-certified umpires.

This issue was also discussed in one of the Annual General Meetings of the federation when the house showed concerns over poor umpiring standards and demanded improving the standard of umpiring at events in the national circuit.

PTF’s head of officiating, Shahzad Alvi, was also present in the meeting and admitted that in spite of several advisories from PTF this practice is affecting the quality of umpiring in the country.

He was of the view that some events organised by provincial associations used non-certified players/others as umpires.

The main reason behind this is that local umpires take part in PTF’s Yellow Badge course but they don’t go for ITF Level-1 course in order to become official international referee.

Another issue why people don’t take up officiating as a profession is its not-so-good prospects as an international referee needs to officiate 25 matches at international level in a year, which is very difficult for many local referees.

The age of junior players is another issue which has been hurting the national junior circuit for a long time. In one of the recent AGMs of PTF, Punjab and Sindh brought up the issue of age verification of the junior players.

No doubt, the federation has been unable to deal with the issue of overage junior players despite issuing strict advisories regarding participation according to players’ age categories.

Another very important issue is that tennis events in the country are not producing talent and have become celebratory. For the last 20 or more years, Pakistan tennis has been reliant on Aisam and Aqeel.

The local tennis fraternity is now hoping against hope that these issues will be resolved by the new PTF management.