Though Pakistan never won any tie against Japan in this world cup of tennis, it had some chances to change history as Japan sent the weakest team to Pakistan for this tie.

No top ten Japanese players were there in the team. The number one player of the Japanese team had previously played only one Davis Cup for Japan and his current ranking is 272 in the world.

The number 2 player of the Japanese team was playing his first Davis Cup match and his ranking was below 350 in the world.

Yet, both of them managed to thrash Pakistani’s most celebrated Davis Cup players for two decades (Aisamul Haq Qureshi and Aqeel Khan) in straight sets.

This humiliating defeat in singles and doubles to Aisam and Aqeel happened on grass courts - the favourite surface of Pakistanis in general and Aisam in particular.

It is time the federation woke up from its deep slumber. The officials have to work on a war footing to steer Pakistan tennis out of crisis.

If we look at the preparations of Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) for this tie, a number of loopholes can be witnessed in the strategy and planning areas.

First, the trials to select the team for the tie were held on hard courts while the official tie matches were held on grass courts.

This proved damaging as grass court players/specialists could not be selected for the Davis Cup tie.

Shahzad Khan and Abid Mushtaq, who are top grass court players in Pakistan, were knocked out of the Davis Cup team.

After the trials on hard courts, the training sessions were held on clay courts which was an even bigger blunder.

And the two players who got selected for the Davis Cup team after trials were not good enough for such a big event. Both of them lost to Barkatullah, an unseeded upcoming player from Peshawar, in the Pakistan Open held in Lahore after the trials.

Now come to the tie. Muzammil Murtaza, one of Pakistan’s top players, was smashed by a junior player of Japan (who was playing the first Davis Cup match of his career) 1-6, 1-6.

This clearly shows how dark Pakistan’s tennis future is since Aisam and Aqeel are now veterans and cannot continue for long.

Aisam has already announced that he would not be playing singles matches in Davis Cup for Pakistan. So we don’t have any backup for Aqeel and Aisam at the moment.

This tie has dragged Pakistan tennis 15 years behind the current level of Asian tennis players. Another thing is that Pakistan will not likely host any tie on home ground for the next few years.

It is time the federation woke up from its deep slumber. The officials have to work on a war footing to steer Pakistan tennis out of crisis.