LAHORE-Former Davis Cup captain Hameedul Haq has said that Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) needs to follow “right man for the right job” policy as it can help Pakistan Davis Cup team to do well well during the upcoming Lithuania tie.
Pinpointing the shortcomings in Pakistan’s fall to Austria on September 16-17, 2022 and giving suggestion for upcoming Pakistan-Lithuania Davis Cup tie from on February 3-4, 2023, Hameed said: “In the last tie against Austria, the PTF did not consider it appropriate to send an expert and experienced clay court coach with the team for such a critical tie resulting in the great fall. Now the PTF should send a former Davis Cup hard court specialist as the coach with the Pakistan team to Lithuania.
“Pakistan could not even win a single set in the September 16-17 tie, which showed how badly things went wrong for the national team. This time, the Lithuanian team doesn’t have top 150 ranked players so we have a good chance to pull this off but all this is dependent upon how serious preparations are done by the PTF management,” he added.
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Hameed further said: “Instead of fielding the senior players against the top Austrians, the team fielded third and fourth-position novice players in the single matches. These low-experienced players never competed against players in the opening matches of the Davis Cup Group II and III ties, but here they played high standard players to open the tie. Now, they should learn from this mistake and nominate experienced senior players in the singles matches.
“In the run-up to Austria, the PTF appointed Mehmood Khan as the coach for two-week training in Islamabad. He is not a qualified individual to carry out such a task for a crucial tie; he was never a Davis Cup player or coach. Now, the PTF management should avail services of professional and highly qualified former Davis Cup hard court specialists for the upcoming Lithuanian Davis Cup tie.
“Also, the PTF made a mockery of matters by asking masseur Muhammad Shahid to act as the team’s physical trainer. This is high time to rectify these mistakes and choose a professional coach and physical trainer for training of the players and send them with the team to Lithuania to brighten their chances of at least doing something better than what happened in Austria,” Hameed concluded.
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