During the last 45 years, Rashid has won so many tennis tournaments in Pakistan and abroad that he has lost count. Now despite the fact that he is nearing his sixties, Rashid has no plans to hang up his racket.

“I love tennis too much to quit,” he told me during an interview in Lahore recently.

During the best part of the eighties and nineties, Rashid dominated the national tennis scene despite the fact that the circuit had a long list of fine players like Islam-ul-Haq, Hameed-ul-Haq, Jameel Ahmed, Nadir Khan, Altaf Hussain, Haseeb Aslam, Mushaf Zia, M Khaliq and many others.

For the last five decades or so, Rashid eats, drinks and sleeps tennis. But initially as a schoolboy, tennis wasn’t his first love.

“When I was studying at Aitchison College I used to play various sports. I partcipated in horse riding. I was also playing cricket. Ramiz Raja was in the same batch as me.

“My elder brother, Nazir Malik, was the junior national champion back in 1961. He had to quit tennis after my father’s death so that he could take care of the family business. He was the one who asked me to pursue tennis. He started coaching me. By the time I was 12, I started taking tennis seriously. I started participating in national junior tournaments. At that time almost all the top sportsmen came from Aitchison College. Cricketers, hockey players all the stars came from the College. The Principal of the college was a sports-loving person. So it helped.

“Later, I joined Government College. I won the 1981 Pakistan Open. I was 20 at that time. It was then the biggest title of my career. I think the winner’s prize money was Rs30,000 which in those days was a big amount. I won the tournament as an unseeded player. I beat one of the Haq brothers. Then I beat Altaf Hussain. In the final I beat defending champion Jameel Ahmed in straight sets.

“When I won there was a headline in one of the newspapers saying: “Malik plays havoc with the seedings”. It prompted me to work even harder. I thought that now I had to start dominating the national circuit.

“At that time the national circuit had a long list of quality players. There was Jameel Ahmed, Nadir Khan, Altaf Hussain, Islam-ul-Haq, Hameed-ul-Haq and many more. There were other players like Saeed Meer and Salman Shikoh in Karachi. The competition was really tough. Many of them were at the prime of their career and had much more experience than me.

“I had to really work hard to start dominating these players. When I was on top I was dominating players who were 16 years younger than me.

“The eighties and later nineties was the golden period of Pakistan tennis,” he said.

“Later I got a scholarship from a US university. I opted for it and went to University of Arkansas. I played a lot of tennis there. Some of my team-mates were among the leading players in the US. After staying there for a few months I returned to Pakistan on my mother’s insistence.

“Once I was back I decided to play tennis professionally. My first target was to be Pakistan’s number one player. In 1982 and 1983 I won a lot of tournaments. But I was still not number one. In 1984, I was beating most of the top players. I was by nature an aggressive player while most of the other top players were more defensive. But they were more consistent at that time.

“I started getting consistency in my game at the end of 84 and by 85 I was at the top of my game. I fully started dominating other top players. For the next few years I was the number one but in 1989 I got injured and was out of tennis for almost eight months. My ranking went down because of the absence. I returned and soon regained my top ranking. A new crop of players, like Haseeb Aslam and Mushaf Zia, came up. In 1992, M Khaliq came on the scene. He was 16 years younger than me.”

Even after spending almost a quarter of a century, Rashid was among the country’s leading players in the 2000s.

“In 2002, there was Davis Cup against China in Peshawar. I was the non-playing captain. Aisam got injured in that match. A few weeks later we had to go to the Asian Games. We went without Aisam as he wasn’t fit. Before the Games, I met the officials there and told them that I could play as a playing captain. They allowed me to play. So Aqeel and I participated. We beat Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka and in the quarters we played against India who had the world’s top pair — Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati. We lost against them and they went on to win the gold medal. It was my fourth Asian Games. And the good thing was that I was still fit enough to compete at the international level.”

These days Rashid spends most of his time coaching youngsters in Lahore.

“I gave my whole life to Pakistan. I’m happy to say that. Even after retirement I decided to stay in Pakistan despite having coaching offers from the United States.

“I have played 24 Davis Cup ties for Pakistan and have won 18 of them. I also have a very good record as non-playing captain. I have represented Pakistan around the world. I played the Olympic trials in Japan and many other major events.”

Rashid laments the fact that the standard of tennis has declined over the years.

“Back in the eighties and nineties, my team-mates were very strong and fit. They used to work really hard. The standard has dipped considerably. At the moment, Aqeel Khan is the only good player on the domestic circuit. The others aren’t good enough. They don’t work hard enough. Aqeel is perhaps the only player in Pakistan who works really hard.

“In my late thirties I played a lot of ITF Futures tournaments. I was ranked at 530 in the world. The problem which I faced was that I never had a good coach. Other leading Pakistan players like Haroon Rahim had that luxury when he moved abroad.

“We had no qualified coaches in Pakistan. Here, we had ball boys and markers who became coaches but they weren’t qualified. So most of us are self-taught.

“The good thing is that all top players of my era chose to stay in Pakistan. Now we are teaching the younger generations. Many of my students became leading players of the country. Many of them got scholarships and went abroad. They have done well and it was tennis that helped them. It’s my message to youngsters of the country to work hard because tennis can open a lot of doors.

Rashid hopes that the government will extend more support towards Pakistan tennis.

“Pakistan tennis has done really well despite all odds. There has never been ample support for tennis in the country. Take Aisam-ul-Haq’s example. He became an international player because of his own hard work and his parents’ support. There were many other talented players but they couldn’t achieve much because of a lack of support.

“Pakistan tennis still has a great future as there are many talented youngsters in the country. There are many bright young boys and girls who can become really good players.

“I have been working as a coach. I have initiated a full-fledged tennis academy in Lahore with the help of Punjab Sports Board. I’m trying my best to promote junior tennis all over Punjab. Punjab Sports Board has been very supportive and I must praise the DG, Adnan Arshad Aulakh who has been making personal efforts for the promotion of sports.

“Personally I think it’s the government which has to support sports. The government has to invest in tennis if we are to succeed in this sport.

I think more and more youngsters should take up tennis as a profession. Either they become world class players; if not then they can get scholarship to the US. It’s a win, win situation for them.”

Rashid believes that in the near future the top duo of Aisam-ul-Haq and Aqeel Khan will continue to dominate the national tennis scene.

“I can still see that Aisam and Aqeel have a spark in them. They can still win for the next two, three years. That’s because the players after them do not have much spark. But the positive thing is that younger players are coming up fast and I’m sure within the next five years we will see them at the top of their game.”

Khalid Hussain is Editor Sports of The News

khalidhraj@gmail.com